HALT IN TRADE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 July 1941, Page 4

HALT IN TRADE

ACTION AGAINST JAPAN BRITISH AND AMERICAN LEAD. FOLLOWED BY NEW ZEALAND. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. An announcement that New Zealand was taking parallel action with other Governments of the British Commonwealth in trade and exchange relations with Japan was made by the ActingPrime Minister, Mr Nash, last night. He said that the measures were being made applicable to Manchuria also, it being regarded as of assistance to China that this should be done. “The system of exchange control and external trade regulations in operation in New Zealand is such that we can take the most important step in performing the Dominion’s part of the measures simply and speedily,” Mr Nash observed. “And I am accordingly taking this opportunity of announcing that, notwithstanding that a permit or exchange authority may already have been issued by the Reserve Bank, no remittance to any country in respect of any trade or other transaction with the Japanese Empire, or by or on behalf of any Japanese national or Japanese controlled firm, may be made without prior confirmation from the Reserve Bank. We are taking parallel action with the other parties to the agreement in making these measures applicable to Manchuria also. “This requirement I have outlined will not necessarily result in a complete stoppage of exchange transactions, but in order to co-operate with other British Commonwealth Governments, and the United States of America, it is desirable that every transaction, including those which had already been initiated, should be carefully reviewed. The restriction on remittances will be operative immediately, but though the effect of this may be an almost complete stoppage of trade with Japan, at least for the time being, it is not proposed to cancel existing import and export licences.

TRADE AGREEMENT TO TERMINATE.

“Another step which has been taken concerns the trade treaty with Japan. In 1928 New Zealand concluded by exchange of notes an arrangement whereby the Japanese and New Zealand Go> vernments engaged to accord each other most favoured nation treatment. Notice has been given today to the Japanese representative in New Zealand that this will no longer be accorded after the expiration of three months notice provided in the 1928 arrangement.

Cablegrams report that Canada, Australia and South Africa have also followed the British and American lead.