World Trade Prospects for Britain
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AWORLD tour, in which he covered nearly 80,000 miles in 222 days, has recently been completed by Mr. Percy Lister, chairman of R. A. Lister and Co., Ltd. He gave an account of his visits to Egypt, India, Ceylon, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, United States, Mexico, Central and South America, to a meeting of the British Engineers' Association on September 12. The conclusions that he drew from his experiences were most interesting.
He pointed out that Egypt is enjoying greatly increased spending power and that there is a large demand for imported products, including engineering supplies.
India's Possibilities Referring to India, Mr. Lister considered that the country might "well prove to be a nation offering far greater benefits to the world as a whole than many yet comprehend." Ile was of the opinion that if we seized our opportunity .of providing guidance in the development of India's secondary industrial requirements, India would not only absorb all that she could produce for many years to come, but would slowly build a purchasing power for capital and consumer goods that might prove to be of fundamental benefit to the almost over-developed secondary industrial resources of other parts of the world.
As in India, Mr. Lister found in Ceylon ample evidence of the need for progressive planning. He believed that Ceylon should not produce just the commodities for which the world is in need, but that British policy should aim at raising the standard of life to enable the population to buy those cornmodities.which accompany an improvement of living conditions.
Mr. Lister warned British manufacturers not to ignore the changed conditions in Australia, which, he said, could never return to its pre-war position.
" The solution of Australia's problem," he said, "is a rapid increase in her population in order that she can not only maintain the sound industries wh:ch she has created, but, on a carefully planned programme, increase her primary production as well, for which there is still great scope."
Mr. Lister did not believe that the manufacture, in whole or in part, of many products in India or Australia, need reduce our total exports to either country.
New Zealand should not, in Mr. Lister's opinion, be encouraged to develop secondary industries except within sound, logical limits. He added that there must be a freer flow of trade if the principles of the Atlantic Charter and the United Nations were to be observed and made successful.
He urged British manufacturers to study on the spot the changed condi lions of Canada. He pointed out that there must be an ever-closer binding of the mutual interests of the United States and Canada, but Canada, by carefully planning her secondary industries, would have to remain a growing consumer of the secondary industrial products ef Britain.
Referring to the United States, the speaker said: "1 am confident that just as they have something to learn from our experience and handling of export problems, so we, in our turn, can learn much from them, of the ways and means by which we can obtain the maximum productive yield from our labour to the advantage of employer and employee alike."
Look to Latin America British manufacturers were advised to turn their attention to Mexico, without bias. Mr. Lister also suggested that Central and South America, which were now far richer than before, were worthy of the closest attention. Representation should, he said, be in the hands of companies suitably staffed and equipped to create long-term goodwill.
" Wherever I have been there was a genuine respect for Britain and the British; a genuine respect for the quality of our products and the integrity of our methods," declared Mr. Lister. The old rules on which international trade was built and prospered had been so shattered by the machinations of dicta. tors, that the world was, he believed. looking in the first place to U.N.O. for a new set of international trading and commercial rules.