ECONOMIC OUTLOOK.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 December 1921, Page 5

ECONOMIC OUTLOOK.

PROSPECTS NOT SO GLOOMY. MR. H. BEAUCHAMP’S ADVICE. We in New Zealand must concentrate on making production pay, and that can be achieved by better organisation, greater economy, more general efficiency, elimination of waste, and, most important of all, by steady and consistent hard work. This statement was made by Mr. Harold Beauchamp, chairman of directors of the Bank of New’ Zealand, at the half-yearly meeting of shareholders on Friday. “Reverting to the immediate business outlook for New Zealand,” said Mr. Beauchamp, “I may remark that our prospects are not, perhaps, so gloomy as may at first appear. We have it on the authority of Mr. Lloyd George, also on the authority of the financial edition of the London Times, that the trade depression in England is passing away. It is said that bottom has been touched, and considerable progress made with the liquidation of commodities which could not be sold last year. In this connection it is interesting to observe the very satisfactory increase in the export of Welsh coal, which is rapidly nearing the proportions of pre-war days. Prices of raw materials are advancing, and we know that wool has already improved somewhat in price. Reports show that there are distinct signs of a general improvement in the woollen textile trade of Yorkshire, and the wool sales held recently in various centres have disclosed a firmer tone with a good demand compared with that existing some months ago. Meat is still under a cloud, but there are prospects of economies and reductions being made in the cost of production and marketing, such as lower freights and a more reasonable scale of wages. The highly optimistic views entertained with respect to butter and cheese have not materialised, and both have receded in value very considerably. Still, factories are now receiving advances of Is 2d per lb for butler, and 7d for cheese, and the payments now being made for butter-fat cannot be regarded as unprofitable prices to those suppliers who are not overloaded with mortgages and biffs of sale over stock. Moreover, any further decline in both butter and cheese may be arrested if .the working classes in Britain become again fully employed.

“There does not appear to be, in the meantime, mueff prospect of opening up any new markets for wool, meat, butter and cheese. The United States, under its Emergency Tariff, has practically shut out Australasian wool, and American sheep farmers are asking for yet further protection. Our trade with the United States is likely therefore to contract.

“I would again emphasise this fact: We in New Zealand must concentrate on making production pay, and that can be achieved by better organisation, greater economy, more general efficiency, elimination of waste, and, most important of all, by steady and consistent hard work. ‘Work alone will fill the depleted tills of the world,’ remarked Mr. Lloyd George in his speech at the Guildhall banquet recently, an apt declaration in epigramatic form of the most pressing need of the times in which we are living. Few will be found to question its truth. Let me supplement it by repeating the admonition of the oldtime preacher, addressed to the workers of all time: ‘Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do. it with all thy might.’ This is, I apprehend, a precept which the workers of our time greatly need to take to heart; but I am satisfied that if all our workers, whether with bruin or sinew, adopt it and practise it. as their rule of life and conduct, we may look courageously and cheerfully forward to the future, and meet fearlessly whatever of ill-fortune it may hold in store for us.”