EMPIRE TRADE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 789, 9 October 1929, Page 7

EMPIRE TRADE

ASTONISHING GROWTH IN 50 YEARS ! MARKETING BOARD’S REPORT , i, I j j An astonishing develojtment in the y i natural resources of the Empire since 1 | the beginning of the present century gj is revealed in the annual report of l- i the Empire Marketing Board, says the j London “Daily Chronicle.” '• | The range of Empire products Q available iu England is year by year e | spreading, while the colonies and = j Dominions absorb nearly half Bri- ' j tain's exports. n | There has been, says the report, a i revolution in Empire supplies. • \ “Every one of the Dominions, and e many of the colonies have,” states e . the board’s report, “advanced within _ the last 50 years from a relatively r modest position into that of import- ; ant contributors to and purchasers in : the great markets of the world. ‘ “There has been an extraordinary r development of the Empire’s re- • sources ever since the beginning of . the present century. “A survey confined only to the r leading exports shows that Austra- " lia’s shipments of wool have risen in this period from slightly over 500 .. million lb. to about 800 million lb.. j and her exports of wheat from half r a million tons to two million, i- “Canada’s wheat exports have 1 grown from about a quarter of a million tons to approximately seven j. million tons, and her exports of _ newsprint from next to nothing to t two million tons. “New Zealand’s principal exports i | are wool and dairy produce; the first 1 has gone up from 150 million to over ~ 200 million lb. and butter from less g than a quarter of a million and cheese r from 100,000 cwt to nearly one and a- !■ half million cwt. in each case. :1 “In the Union of South Africa shipr ments of wool have risen from 90 1 to 260 million lb. “Newfoundland has developed since the beginning of the century an export trade in paper to the annual value of £2,500,000. I “India shows a similar advance. ! Raw cotton, her main export, has ini creased from 100 million to nearly j 1,500 million lb. last year, and tea from 190 million lb. to 360 million lb. “The development of the natural resources of the oversea Empire is thus being carried out with steady effectiveness,” adds the report. “The significance of this to people in the United Kingdom may be seen more r vividly perhaps from another angle, v “Two generations ago the United s Kingdom derived only a very limited i range of its requirements from overi- sea parts of the Empire. The fiftieth anniversary of the first shipment of a frozen meat from Australia will take place toward the end of this year, n- while New Zealand’s meat trade only Q began in the eighties, e “As recently as the end of the war e there were no eggs from the Soutlih ern Dominions and scarcely any homeproduced beet sugar or canned fruits. tt “In the last two or three years cigarettes made from Rhodesian tobacco have become familiar in our .. shops, cigarettes from Cyprus' and 3 Mauritius have become obtainable, f aud canned fruit from Fiji, chilled salmon from Newfoundland, and ~ grapes from Palestine have for the , first time been shipped to this couu- • try. High record shipments of various ® Empire grown foodstuffs have been 1 achieved in this same brief period of B two years. ! - “Australian sultanas and raisins t imported in 1927 were 160,000 cwt greater than in any previous season, y while Australian wine more than J doubled its previous highest figure. “Severe frosts toward the end of 2 1927 low-ered these imports in 1925, ’• but. Australian apples, pears and i- canned fruit all made records. t “Imports of frozeu lamb, frozen r pork and cheese from New Zealand a in 1927 reached higher points than 1 ever before, but in the cases of the e first two were surpassed in 1925. a “Wheat and tobacco from Canada, i- coffee from East Africa and tobacco e from Rhodesia are other commodities - .shipped to this country in 1928, in greater quantities than ever before.”