WAR AND TRADE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 79, 22 August 1914, Page 6

WAR AND TRADE.

NEW ZEALAND'S POSITION. DOMINION WILL SCORE. ' So far as New Zealand is concerned, it was quite clear a month ago that not only the quantities of produce raised, but the prices to be received, were going to be much increased'this coming season T~ (says the Wellington !Post). The prospects were exceptionally .bfight. They have not been materially dimmed by fch'i war. Having recovered from the stag'geiiing blow that England and Germany were at war, we are how able to rub our eyes, look around, and resume our work, not only in the country districts but in the cities too. There is much work to do in the cities, and the work of the country is now 'beginning. No-'-thing can be gained by suspension of employment. There is plenty of money in the country, and the pound-note (in the country) will ibuy as much as the sovereign bought before paper was made legal tender. Both Government and opposition have stood shoulder to shoulder in having such emergency legislation placed upon tlhe Statute Books as will adequately meet infinitely worse conditions than aippear at the mojnent as likely to arise. There lias been some unavoidable inconvenience, Ibut that has now" been re- - duced; and the seaways are open, and one may with confidence believe that they will remain open so far as the British Navy is concerned, for the free despatch of butter and cheese, wool and meat and other commodities that we have to sell. Canada and the United States, who aire 'in some respects competitors with Germany for our import trade, are still new, iut arc expanding markets for the goJds we have to sell them. But the main market, the first string to our T)ow, is Great. Britain, and from ths-re, we learn from a Minister of the Crown (no less) that there is every hope that trade, Home and foreign, will rapidly, resume its normal course. THE OUTLOOK. The outlook is really most promising, and i.t should' ! be reflected in the resumption 01 any suspended works' in the Dominion itself and the getting ready for the produce year that is about to reopen. So far as the Government is concerned it has undertaken to carry out all public works in hand so far as possible and to prevent -unemployment in town or country. It is for the trading community to act as the farming community will certainly act—not only in generosity in the matter of gifts in money and in kind for patirotic and other funds, but in the really more urgent and Iwneficicnt direction of re-es-tablishing trade within the Dominion and overseas in order that those who . are left behind may 'not only support those who have 'been sent away, but may also themselves live in reasonable comfort now that there is every prospect of the war —no matter how long it may continue—being confined to Europe.