The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. MONDAY, APRIL 27, 1914. RECIPROCITY WITH AMERICA.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5, 27 April 1914, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. MONDAY, APRIL 27, 1914. RECIPROCITY WITH AMERICA.

That there is some reasonable prospect of trade reciprocity between New Zealand and the United States of America is the expressed belief ot at least some members of the American Trade Commission, which lately toured New Zealand, and is now in the Commonwealth of Australia. A few days ago Dr. Snowden stated in Melbourne that many businessmen and members of Chambers of Commerce in New Zealand had shown great interest on this question of reciprocity, and that while no formal agreement seemed yet practicable, the future was full of hope. Probably Dr. Snowden takes too diplomatic a view, for it is now most unlikely that New Zealand would consent to any preferential tariff with America which might conflict at all with that Imperial preference system which lias already been agreed upon. Dr. Snowdon is, however, quite right in predicting a rapid expansion of New Zealand’s export trade to America so far as our stable products are concerned. The population of the United States has increased thirty per cent, during the past twenty years, while agricultural production has only increased something like eight per cent., and the quantity of dairy products in the west merely suffices to supply the domestic market. In face of this, there must bo a splendid opportunity for a produce-exporting country, such as our own, developing trade in butter, beef and mutton with the United States. In the Eastern Staton especially, agricultural and pastoral Indus-

tries have been largely supplanted by mining and manufactures, and the de'mand for outside food products is constantly increasing in that quaitci. Dr. Snowden, on this account, urges that the time lias come lor New Zealand and Australia to seize the opportunity by the recent amendment of the American tariff and develop their export trade at once in this direction.