BRIGHT DAYS AHEAD

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 537, 14 December 1928, Page 8

BRIGHT DAYS AHEAD

FREIGHTED with butter, cheese and wool valued approximately at £1,200,000, three ships, within seven days, will have left the port of Auckland carrying cargoes for the markets of the world. Satisfactory in itself, this export of primary produce directs attention to trade conditions that have prevailed during the year. The wool sale prices so far have been reasonably satisfactory, and the rising butter market bodes well for the Auckland farmer. But the most heartening intellig'ence of all is the reassertion of the balance of exports over imports. The figures for 11 months of the year show that the exports of the Dominion exceed the imports by £10,341,506, and the exports for 1928 are £8,707,293 more than those of the previous year, while the imports are only £629,909 greater. These substantial symptoms of tx-ade healthiness are doubly welcome after a black year such as 1926 when the imports exceeded the exports by £4,613,988. The indications are that the hoped-for economic recovery is at hand. Money is becoming easier; but in the general economic content following such buoyancy, thought must be given to the future, and commercial minds should direct attention to the devising of schemes that will protect the country from repetitions of the financial embarrassments of the past. One obviously satisfactory method of doing this is through the encouragement of the Dominion’s secondary industries. In tlie past, New Zealand lias been pathetically dependent upon her primary produce, and market set-backs have brought slumps through which the whole country has suffered. The Dominion lias been too much like a man fighting with one hand; a spectacular effort when the arm is strong; but the wise man leaves nothing to chance, and uses two. With a healthy body of secondary industries developed and encouraged to the utmost, there would be much less danger of a return of black years such as 1926 and 1920. Certain depressions are more or less inevitable, but the blow can always be minimised. With days of x-eturning prosperity, the whole country will be in a position to aid the secondary industries. Money should he available to help the enterprising manufacturer, and the people themselves, having- increased spending power, will, through trade patriotism, have an opportunity of taking out a sound insurance policy against a return of the economic miseries of the past.