THE TRADE COMMISSIONER.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 160, 11 September 1916, Page 4

THE TRADE COMMISSIONER.

(Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, September, 9 During the next few weeks Mr R. W* Dalton, the representative of the British Board of Trade in New Zealand, will make an extended tour of the Dominion for the purpose of getting into touch with business people in every par of the country. Some strange misconceptions exist with regard to the Board of Trade. The president of the Dunedin Chamber of Commerce is rei ported to have said the other day than the Board consisted of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Speaker of the House of Commons, -and some other dignitaries who were not likely to command the confidence of the business community. This statement would have been true in the times of Charles H., but since then the Board of Trade has become a body of a very different character. It has the services of! some of the United Kingdom’s most prominent business men; its agents and ' representatives circle the world, and it has undertaken the organisation of Britain’s industrial forces for the commercial war that must follow the struggle on European battlefields. Mr Dalton is qualified to speak of its work in this connection. He was on the London staff of the Board when the war began, and within a few days of the outbreak of hostilities he was on* gaged in the promotion of a remarkable exhibition of enemy goods, which .were collected from every corner of the kingdom for examination and study by British manufacturers. This was the first step in the Board’s campaign against German trade, and since then the field of work has been extended until tc-day more than fifty seperata committees and commissions are dealing with trade problems, studying trade conditions, examining, markets,, and eollesting information under thadirection of the Department- with wlqwi Ms Dalton, is associated.