BIG FIGHT AHEAD

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1061, 27 August 1930, Page 8

BIG FIGHT AHEAD

N.Z. MUST BATTLE FOR BRITISH MARKET DAIRYMAN’S OPINION From Our Own Correspondent HAMILTON. Today I The next live or ten years win j exceedingly difficult for New Zealand | which will have to battle jto secure supremacy in the Brito I market for its produce, according to Mr. W. Goodfellow, managing director of the New Zealand Co-operative Dairy j Company. Because the Dominion^! ! produce butter-fat cheaper thaa any other country in the world, hotr. ever, he is not pessimistic ooncemior the outcome of the struggle. Mr. Goodfellow voiced these onir ions in the course of an address*V dairymen assembled at a dinner hen last evening, when he ascribed the majority of the Empire’s troubles t- ; holding insufficient gold, compared I with before the war, to finance Empj r ,. trade. GOLD HOLDINGS The relationship of gold production and holding to trade was illustrated by Mr. Goodfellow. He pointed to the increase in the gold holding of the United States from £392,000 000 in 1913 to £800,000,000 in 1929, while' Britain's supply had decreased’ in the same period from £150,000,000 to £146,000,000. In the same 16 yeart France had increased her gold holi ing from £304,000,000 to £ 350,000,Ode He asserted that the gold which had been imported into France and the United States had become “sterilised," and was not used as a basis of credit. Paris was aiming to become the money-centre of Europe. Practically every part of the Empire was now holding less gold that before the war, according to Mr. Goodfellow. He went on to show that during the past seven or eight years the world's population had increased by 1 per cent., and between 1923 and 1927 world trade had increased by 3 per cent. At the same time the output of gold in the world had advanced by only li per cent., and in this period the Empire gold holdings declined by 10 per cent. The value of 24 Empire agricultural products had fallen 45 per cent, since 1925, and prices had declined because the production of gold was lessened. FREE TRADE POLICY' Mr. Goodfellow held the view that as a result of the work of the Empire Marketing Board. England would abandon her free trade policy, and adopt protection. He considered it probable also that New Zealand wonld be consulted with a view to becoming a party to an arrangement for preferential tariffs with the Empire. He praised the work of the board in educating the public or Great Britain to ask for Empire goods, and he advised New Zealand producers to support it. The solution of the problem lay in buying more goods within the Empire, said Mr. Goodfellow. The Empire imported goods to the value of £2,200,000,000 a year and of this volume only £900.000,000 was imported from Empire countries. A number of prominent Englishmen, including Lord Melchett and Lord Beaverbrook. were seized with the importance of Empire trading. The British banks and organised British labour were also supporting their policy.