America’s Lead in Motor Trade

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 112, 2 August 1927, Page 9

America’s Lead in Motor Trade

IMPORT OF MOTORS IMPRESSIVE COMPARISONS (From Our Resident. Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Monday. Comparisons of tiie motor trade to New Zealand from the United Kingdom, United States, and Canada respectively produce an impressive result. The Government Statistician, Mr. Malcolm Fraser, emphasises this in a report he has just issued, and in which he says the firm hold established by both the United States and Canada upon the New Zealand market centres mainly around the motor trade. The last decade has seen a phenomenal development in motor traffic throughout the Dominion. Tlio total imports of motor vehicles and parts, which in 1916 amounted to £1,668,895, increased to £5,193,471 in 1926.

“Whether or not the disorganisation of British industry as the result of belligerent activities enabled America to encroach upon Great Britain’s prewar share of the New Zealand market,” he says, “the fact remains that she has far outstripped the Mother Country, in the motor trade, and this in spite % of the general tariff of 25 per cent. (35 per cent, from September 1, 1926) imposed upon foreign motors, as against the preferential tariff of 10 per cent, accorded the British article.

“While imports from the United Kingdom under this heading increased from £252,075 in 1916 to £1,232,475 in 1926, the corresponding imports from the United States during the same period jumped from £1,020,635 to £2,443,041. Equally remarkable are the imports of motor spirit from America, which increased from £438,108 to £2,077,628 during the decade.

“The Canadian figures for motors and parts are even more impressive, having advanced from £198,205 in 1916 to £1,300,389 in 1926.

The general question of intraimperial trade is treated in the report, which says that the most outstanding features brought in the imports figures are the growth of trade with the United States and Canada, and the decline in the Mother Country’s share of goods entering the Dominion. During the pre-war years, 1909-13, the United Kingdom supplied on an average 60.09 per cent, of our imports, a figure which had fallen as low as 49.9 Sin 1921. Although considerable amelioration took place in 1922 and 1923, in both of which years the percentage exceeded 55, subsequent years witnessed a further decline, the percentage for 1926 being as low as 48.77. The contribution of the United States to the Dominion’s imports has grown from an average of 8.70 per cent during 1909-13 to 19.50 per cent, in 1926. The greatest relative increase, however, is disclosed in the figures relating to Canada, which claimed an average of 1.63 per cent, of our imports during 1909-13. as compared with 6.88 per cent, in 1926. Canada’s peak year, with S per cent.., occurred in 1924, since when there has been a progressive fall. _