AUSTRALIA’S TRADE PROSPECTS

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 3696, 4 December 1912, Page 5

AUSTRALIA’S TRADE PROSPECTS

SPEECH BY LORD CHELMSFORD.

'UNITED PEES? ASSOCIATION —COPYSIGET] SYDNEY. Dec. 3.

Lord Chelmsford opened new commodious headquarters for the Chamber of Commerce.

Referring to the opening of the Panama Canal and the development of trade with the East, he said that Australia, owing to her strategic position. should have a commanding place in the commerce of the Orient, and perhaps that of the west coast of oouth America.

[ln a speech some months ago Mr A. Fisher (Premier of the Commonwealth) said: “The opening of the new waterway will draw the attention of the American export trade and stimulate its activity in these fields. We may therefore expect a strong effort for Australasian trade by the United States within a few years. The opening of the Panama Canal will be the occasion for the start of legions of commercial travellers, who will invade the Antipodes in the search for business. A good deal of futile effort will be expended. The attack will be fierce at first, but it will not be sustained. As a warrant for our prediction we may recall the attempts made by British manufacturers to recapture Canadian trade when the preferential tariff was grafted upon the Canadian fiscal system. As in the Canadian case, it will be found that the trade cannot be won. and the besiegers will retire from the field. The United States, however, will be left with a residue of increased Australasian trade, and her proportion will thereafter stand at a higher level than it does at present. About 111 per cent, of Australia's imports reach her from the United States direct, the value of this proportion being about £6,000,000 annually. In addition to this, about £1,000,000 worth of American manufactures reach Australia through other countries, chiefly Great Britain. We may expect that the latter trade, or the greater part of it. will seek its destination direct, and will no longer reach the Australian ports via Liverpool. This will mean a loss of revenue to the British ships at present carrying the goods, and a loss of profit to the British merchants through whose hands the goods pass on their way to the points of distribution. The effect thus anticipated is conditional upon the ability of non-British shipping to secure the opportunities placed iu its path by the Panama Canal. About one-third of the export trade from the United States to Australia comprises kerosene and oils, naptha, turpentine and resin, timber, tobacco, barley, meats, and glucose —all goods in which great Britain cannot compete. The principal competitive goods supplied to the Australian market by the United States are boots and shoes, textiles, ammunition and explosives, clocks and watches, fish, furniture, glass and glassware, rubber and leather goods, iron and steel bars, tubes, plates and sheets, tools and machinery, stationery, vehicles and cycles. Increase of trade will naturally take place in Amercian shipments of these goods, and here keener American competition may be expected in Australia.”]