BRITISH TRADE.
PROSPECT OF RECOVERY. NEED FOR DEFLATION OF PRODUCING COSTS. Sir Philip Proctor, who. during the later years of the war, held the position of Director of Meat Supplies in England, arrived in Wellington on Monday. He intends paying a short business trip to New Zealand. Seen subsequent to his arrival by a representative of the Tinies, Sir Philip said he did not feel so optimistic as others on the immediate prospects of Great Britain recovering her pre-war export trade.
There must, first, he said, be a material fall in the cost of living at Home, and in this, of course, was inseparably bound up the standard of wages paid. The great cost of production was the chief cause of the weakness of the export trade of Great Britain. In the years before the war, there was nothing so regular as the shipping between the United Kingdom and the Dominion. Shipping costs then were equally borne by the outward and homeward cargoes; now they were borne exclusively by the cargoes from the Dominions, and the freights were perilously high for the producers. It may ba disagreeable news, he said, but, if the New Zealand farmer was to be fully protected in this regard, all those interested in his produce must share the burden—those associated with shipment, storage, freezing and otner services. “In place of the present shyness and nervousness in regard to trade we want a better tone of confidence and stability,” declared Sir Philip Proctor. “Let us get something like the habits, if not the prices, of the pre-war period of trade. Precautions and responsibilities must be shared generally, and it is unfair to expect one class of the community to assume the whole burden.” . “Has anything further been done with the proposed Government line of steamers?” asked the visitor. When told there were no new developments, he added warmly: “The experience of Government trading during the wartime has considerably increased the body of opinion in Great Britain that trading is not one of the proper functions of the lt can trade successfully with a monopoly, but it cannot enter successfully into the -n--ternational business. The system of administration of Government departments is against success, for ’>>' commercial sphere the man in control of a shipping or other concern is vested with powers which the head of a State concern could not. attempt to exercise- The Prime Minister of Australia could, if he wished, furnish the | supporters of a State shipping sei \ ice with figures and facts that would dis:>bi <e Uicir m uds of any prospects of ieier running it successfully in coninewith e-mmarciaJ-iv-aan.lueted lines.
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Taranaki Daily News, 3 December 1921, Page 11
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437BRITISH TRADE. Taranaki Daily News, 3 December 1921, Page 11
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