CORRESPONDENCE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 251, 13 March 1913, Page 6

CORRESPONDENCE.

- *»mm< BRITAIXVS POSITION'. Mr. T. < tarnett. one of tli- British Trade Commissioners now in New Plymouth, ami a big cotton manufacturer at Homo, was. will) Sir Alfred I'ateman, a distinguished member of the Board of Trade, entertained In (lie New Zealand Clnl) in Wellington on Monday evening. In the course of a. speech, lie said, was, it not a miracle that practically the | whole of the earth where it was iit for white men and while women to live to reproduce their race, and to reproduce their political institutions,-was peopled by English-speaking people? Apart from the population of the United States, lie supposed that the British race numbered (it) millions. Had they ever considered how responsible was the trusteeship of what was comparatively a small drop in the world's population over the vast territories they held? 'How, if ever there were a race upon whom the obligation to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth was laid it was ours? He believed it was for the good of the whole human race that the Englishspeaking people should prosper and increase. He trusted that the fair land of New Zealand and the continent, of Austral in would be filled up with a greater degree of rapidity than at present obtained with English-speaking people. Quite lately there had been a phenomenal burst'' of activity in commerce all over the world, and he was proud to believe that the Old Country had got her full share of that prosperity. Here in Xew Zealand he found that the country's exports, which consisted mainly of foodstuffs and raw mar terials, were almost entirely sent to the Old Country in order to feed her great teeming population. And, on the other hand, on examining the returns of Xew Zealand imports, he found that the most formidable competitors the local manufacturers had were the manufacturers of the Old Country. This seemed to him to mean that the Old Country was not played out yet, and that she could i still stand and face the competition of the world. He found that our manufacturers were making most excellent products of the highest quality. ITe was glad to fiml that llie nafnes on the mft' chines in the textile mills were the same as those on the machinery of his own cotton mill at Home. And in using this machinery he felt sure we were equipping ourselves with the best appliances the world could produce. The people of the Motherland did not envy Xew Zealanders their prosperity. He believed that in the long run the enhanced prosperity of the dependencies meant enhanced prosperity for the people of ' the Old Land, for lie was perfectly ccr--1 tain no individual and no nation could prosper out of the bankruptcy of its I customers. So long as young Australians and young Xew Zealanders spoke J of 'going back'' to England, even though .' it was tlieir first voyage, the bond of I kinship would endure. Some day. when I the islands were filled with the popula- | tion they should carry, he trusted those ; who were alive then would perhaps re- ] member that the dearest wish of all the j members of the Commission was that i the land should be peopled to its fullest I capacitv with people of the British race. ] ' -