AUSTRALIAN TRADE.

Waikato Argus, Volume I, Issue 64, 3 December 1896, Page 4

AUSTRALIAN TRADE.

. « . Uniiki; the heading "The Colonies," the London Times writes as follows : Throughout Australia there is a growin« tendency to recognise the immense importance of the part played by primary production in maintaining the prosperity of the colonies. Increasing attention is devoted to the expansion of the export trade, and the results which have been obtained in this direction must lie taken into consideration in attempting to forecast the probable development not only of Australian, but of Imperial fiscal policy. A single article will servo to illustrate some aspects of the quest ion. Ten years ago Australia had no export trade in butter. (Sieat Britain at that time re qrired for consumption, in addition to what could be produced at home, 7.">,000 tons, nearly the whole of which was imported from foreign countries. As early as JNS7 Victoria endeavoured to utilize its pastoral opportunities by sending a few hundredweights of butter home for sale, but the journey across the tiopies and other causes proved disastrous. It was net until IS'l'2, when protective ideas were receiving some severe shocks in tiie colony and cold storage in oceangoing steamers had been secured, that the butter trade can he said to have been seriously started. Last year Victoria alone sent home 1C.(i40 tons of butter, of which tliu value may be roughly estimated at a million sterling. The other Australasian colonies have not been idle. Their butter trade has not developed at the same rapid rate as that of Victoria, but the total quantity «f Australasian butter imported into the United Kingdom last year reached the quantity of 17,(H7 tons, an amount equivalent in round numbers to nearly onefourth of the total importation of Great Britain ten years ago. In the meantime, the consumption of Great Britain hits increased, home production lias remained stationary, and the total amount imported last year from all countries was •J,B - _'.">,li(i - Jcwt., or upwards of 141,000 tons. The Australian export, which has given to the colony of Victoria alone a return of a million sterling per annum, has taken nothing from the trade of other countries. It has simply supplied a demand which had hitherto remained latent in the markets of the. United Kingdom, and has created a new trade for Australia, while it has added to the amenities of existence iu this country. Without entering into details of the trade in frozen meat, wool, Mine, and other colonial products, it is evident that the same latent demand for all these articles may aw.iit development in the large markets of consumption of the world ; and, if this be the case, the conditions under which such a demand can be gratified with mutual profit must be sufficient production in the most favoured circumstances, accompanied by every attainable facility foe transport and exchange. In a thickly-populated country like. Lngland milk is readily saleable and fetches a better price than butter. In the so'itury grazing areas of Australia milk is unsaleable, and. at the same time, the alternation of the seasons between the southern and the northern hemispheres gives opportunity for the production of butter in the greatest quantity at the moment in which it is least plentiful in Europe. But those natural opportunities alone were insufficient, and no development of a butter trade was possible until cheap and efl'ective means of transport had been found. The rule holds generally good, and the success of which the Australian butter trade is an instance will be found in every centre of exporting industry throughout the Ktnpire" to be attended by an inclination towards free trade and the multiplication of the channels of cheap communication with other markets. In eo far, therefore, as tin: happy indications of returning prosperity in Australia are due to the development of the primary production and with it of the export trade of the southern colonies we may expect to see the tendency towards lowered tariffs and the creation of fresh lines of cable and steam shipping communication steadily accentuate itself. This, notwithstanding all the talk about protection which is current at home, is what is actually taking place. Of the five colonies of the continent of Australia there is only one which has not this year moved in the direction of greater freedom of trade : new shipping facilities have quite lately been arranged between Glasgow and Australia; the relatively new lines of steamers which run between Australia and Vancouver and between Vancouver and Japan have also been found of late to be insufficient for the trade of which they arc the vehicles, and the expected decision in favour of tiie construction of the Pacific cable is likely to be followed by an immediate addition to the number of steamers employed upon both lines