DOMINION PRODUCE

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 151, 23 December 1929, Page 4

DOMINION PRODUCE

EXTENSION OF MARKET

PEOVINCES OF ENGLAND

(From "The Post's" Representative.)

LONDON, 7th November

Newspaper cuttings from Manchester and district point to tho fact that the campaign in favour of New Zealand produce had a most successful launching. The presence of the High Commissioner undoubtedly helps to open up the news columns of the newspapers, though, of course, the Dairy Producers Board and the Honey Board are making use of the advertising columns of the same journals. When the High Commissioner sets out to "do business" iv the provincial centres he is prepared for the newspaper representatives who invariably meet him and his party at the station. On tho night before Sir James Parr's arrival in Manchester the Manchester "Evening' News," in its "Business Man's Diary," gave a sketch of the High Commissioner's career, and ihe following day published an interview, in which the High Commissioner said: "What I ask for is voluntary preference to your most affectionate and loyal Dominion—loyal to you iv sentiment and in trade. Relatively, on a population basis, we are your best customers for tho manufactured goods of Manchester and district." He proceeded to list the local engineering firms with which New Zealand traded —nearly all of them household words in the district. "We take hydro-electric machinery," he continued, "focomotives, workshop machinery, and castings. 1 think it is safe to reiterate that no other manufacturing district gets better patronage from New Zealand than Manchester. But you are not taking our products as we think you might, and we want to know why." INTENSIVE CAMPAIGN. A good report of the activities of a very full day appeared in the "Manchester Guardian." Sir James Parr's plea, at the dinner given by the Manchester Ship Canal Company, for voluntary preference was a feature of the report. Tho "Guardian" also devoted a sub-leader to the subject of the campaign.. The writer said:— "New Zealand is evidently determined that the praises of its produce shall not go unsung in the Mother Country, and for tho time being Manchester is to be the centre of a new campaign with the avowed object of at least doubling—and, if possible, quadrupling—its consumption of that produce. The campaign was opened to-day by Sir James Parr, High Cony missioner for the Dominion in this country." After mentioning the High Commission's programme in the city the writer concludes:— "At the meeting in the Chamber of Commerce he made it clear that the campaign is to be a really intensive one. It is to be carried on for 'some months.' Shops are to be taken, good use is to be made of newspapers, free samples of produce are to bo given away, and in every other legitimate way an effort is to- be made to cultivate throughout the- industrial area of the North-west a taste and demand for what he did not hesitate to describe as not only 'the best goods in tho world,' but also the cheapest of their kind." The "Manchester Guardian Commercial" prints a two-column article by

Professor W. Belshaw (Auckland University College), on New Zealand's trade outlook, and also a statement on New Zealand trade in its editorial columns. Tho "Yorkshire Post" and the "Bradford Telegraph" and "Argus" also publish shorter reports of the High •Commissioner's activities and statements. Good work seems to have been accomplished, and the produce boards should benefit considerably from the initial flourish of trumpets. EIGHT KIND OP APPEAL. Later cuttings are from the Liverpool "Journal of Commerce." In a leading article the journal says:— "In making this appeal Sir James Parr struck the right note. He said he was not asking for Empiro free trade, nor was he asking for fiscal preference. What he wants is a voluntary preference for Now Zealand's food products, which, .incidentally, are the best on the market, and only needed to be known to bo preferred. New Zealand's food products are increasing year by year, and a market had to be found for them, and where better than in Great Britain? There is no idea of hurting the British farmers, but Great Britain takes a very largo quantity of her foodstuffs from foreigners, when she could find as good food products in New Zealand, and would be helping her own kin by buying there-. This is tho kind of appeal which will make the average man think, and there will be no reason for surprise if Sir James Parr's wish is not gratified ero long " A useful paragraph in which are quoted some of the High Commissioner s main arguments appears in the Grocer," and thus will come under the eye of the majority of provision dealers in Great Britain