AMERICAN GOODS IN NEW ZEALAND
In the foregoing chapters I have mentioned two facts that should mean
much to the exporters of the United States. One is that New Zealand
is an agricultural country, exporting raw materials and importing
manufactured articles, and the other is that the per-capita wealth of
all persons of more than twenty years of age is about four thousand
dollars. In other words, New Zealand is dependent on foreign markets as
outlets for her rich agricultural production, and on foreign factories
to supply her needs for finished goods, and she has the money to pay
for what she wants. The total foreign trade, imports and exports, comes
to more than four hundred dollars a year for every one of her people.
This, the New Zealanders claim, is the highest per-capita foreign trade
in the world. In some years half the amount has been spent for goods
brought in from other countries.
In travelling here one sees everywhere evidences of prosperity and a
high level of comfort. The people are well dressed and live in modern,
well-built houses. Unlike Australia, New Zealand has a big rural
population, and about half the inhabitants live out on the land or in
country villages. There are only four cities of any size, but there are
a hundred towns of one or two thousand, and perhaps a dozen ranging
between two and ten thousand. All are up to date in their conveniences
and equipment.
The New Zealand cities have their theatres, libraries, and stores,
their banks and their factories. Each has its cricket club and its
recreation grounds, and the people devote a large part of their time to
amusements and sports. The short working day gives leisure to the wage
earners. They leave their jobs in time to dress for the evening, and
take their families to the movies, where they often see American films.
During the half holiday they spend more money than if they were at work.
In proportion to its population, Auckland, the commercial metropolis,
has more rich men than any other city in New Zealand, although
Wellington, the capital, is growing the fastest. On the South Island,
the largest city is Christchurch. It is on the famous Canterbury
Plains, “The Garden Spot of New Zealand.” South of it is Dunedin,
with a population of sixty thousand. Christchurch and Dunedin are
rival towns, the feeling between the people of the two places being
much the same as that between the populations of Minneapolis and
St. Paul. Christchurch was founded by a group of Church of England
settlers, who gave it its religious name. Dunedin was started by Scotch
Presbyterians at about the same time, and in its early days it was by
no means safe to question election, justification, sanctification, or
infant damnation within its precincts. The Scotch colonists wanted to
name this settlement after their capital at home. But there were so
many Edinburghs in the world that they decided on the Celtic name for
Edinburgh and called the place Dunedin.
To-day nine tenths of the people of Dunedin are of Scotch descent and
the place is a magnet for Scottish immigrants. There are Scotch names
over the stores, Scotch names for the streets, and the little stream
that runs through the north end of the town is called the Water of
Leith. When I asked a rosy-faced boy the name of one of the churches,
he replied with a thick brogue:
“That, sor, is the Fierst Kirk.”
The Dunedin men say that their churches are far better off than those
of the rival city. They are all out of debt and have money in the bank.
When the city was founded one tenth of all the land was set aside for
the Church. This is leased out for twenty-one years at a time, on
condition that at the close of each such lease all improvements made
shall belong to the Church.
Dunedin is in the rich Otago Province, which irrigation has made into a
great fruit-producing region. Grapes, peaches, pears, nectarines, and
several kinds of nuts are raised in abundance. For a time the industry
suffered from the great numbers of birds, but the importation of the
German owl, which killed off most of them, solved that difficulty.
Dairying and sheep raising are carried on almost as extensively as on
the Canterbury Plains, and the farmers raise four good crops of alfalfa
in a year.
There are four big woollen mills in the neighbourhood of Dunedin and
here also is one of the car shops of the government railways. Another
local industry is the freezing of thousands of rabbits for export.
Our trade with New Zealand is rapidly increasing. Every year we sell
her goods valued at nearly forty million dollars, or more than eighteen
per cent. of the total imports. Great Britain has the bulk of the
trade, but the United States comes next, and then Australia. There
is no doubt that we might double our share if we tried hard enough.
I have met a number of American salesmen, all of whom say that they
are doing well. They are, however, somewhat handicapped by the bad
impression created by that class of our commercial travellers who are
for ever bragging of their country and over-praising their goods. This
is particularly distasteful to all New Zealanders and especially so to
the business man. On the whole, however, the people like our goods and
are friendly to the Yankees, as they call us.
Take, for instance, a salesman I met the other night in the chief
hotel at Dunedin. He has been selling goods here and in other parts of
Australasia during the past five years. Said he:
“American goods are fast making their way in this part of the world.
I am the agent for several large companies and am doing well. We are
selling printing paper by the ton. There is a good demand for farming
machinery of all kinds, and tens of thousands of acres of sheep
pastures are enclosed in fences of American wire. Our automobiles are
the most popular and the country is alive with ‘flivvers.’ The New
Zealanders bought ten million dollars’ worth of our cars in a single
year, to say nothing of four million dollars’ worth of tires. They have
spent as much again on our gasoline and oils. American bicycles are
sold everywhere, and in spite of their higher prices our carpenter’s
tools are preferred to those of Europe. Recently I took a big order for
steel rails. We have also a good business in electrical supplies.”
[Illustration: As in every other country where modern farming methods
prevail, American agricultural machinery is much used in New Zealand.
So also are our automobiles, tires, and small tools.]
[Illustration: Among the many good dairy herds of the Dominion,
Ayrshires, Jerseys, and Holsteins are the favourite breeds. Tons of the
finest cheese and butter are annually exported.]
[Illustration: Refrigerator ships, sailing overseas with New Zealand’s
frozen mutton, have revolutionized her farming. Instead of being raised
on wild grasses for wool and tallow, as formerly, the sheep are now
fattened on cultivated forage crops.]
The government is undertaking to develop New Zealand’s water power.
It has picked out no less than seventy-two sites for hydro-electric
projects, and it has a big programme under way. The Lake Coleridge
plant, seventy miles from Christchurch, serves a population of more
than one hundred thousand, and enables Christchurch to have a two-cent
fare on its municipally owned street-car lines. The Waikato plant,
seventeen miles from the town of Cambridge in the North Island, can
generate eighty-four hundred horsepower; and the Waipori Falls project
furnishes eighty thousand horsepower for the city and the factories
of Dunedin. Extensions of these three plants are being pushed, and
the government has plans for other installations which will give
electric energy to practically all the towns and rural districts of
the North Island. Such projects should mean more business for the
electrical-supply firms of the United States.
Our firms are selling Connecticut clocks, Illinois farm machinery,
and Massachusetts watches. I saw American typewriters in Wellington.
There is a good market for all sorts of Yankee notions. The other day
while riding on a train with a New Zealand merchant, I asked him what
he thought of American goods. Pulling his right foot from under his
travelling rug, he put it up on the seat beside me.
“You see those shoes?” said he. “They are American. They are the
easiest shoes I have ever had on. They have not troubled me a day since
I bought them.”
The New Zealand government is one of the chief customers for
manufactured goods. It owns the railroads, builds bridges, and operates
coal mines. Hence, its purchases are enormous. It buys all sorts of
iron and steel building materials, as well as hardware, galvanized
roofing, elevators, irrigation pumps, and all kinds of machinery and
engineering apparatus.
We now have the best consular service of any commercial nation, and
New Zealand offers a splendid field for its operations. Times have
changed both in this Dominion and in Australia, since the day typified
by the young man who got himself appointed consul at Melbourne. His
only business experience had been as postmaster in his little home town
in Wisconsin. He was asked by an American why he did not keep the State
Department posted on the openings for American trade, and on the big
business developments going on everywhere. He replied that he reported
upon all things that the department directly asked for, but that he
did not consider it best to advertise the great trade opportunities of
Australia for fear it might call them to the attention of other nations.
New Zealand buyers give to British firms as many orders as they
can, without too great a sacrifice of their own interests. This is
especially true since the World War, as the people are anxious to do
what they can to stimulate British trade and thus help the mother
country pay her enormous debt and regain prosperity. I find here a
strong love for Old England. Many New Zealanders, even those born
and bred here, speak of a trip there as going “home,” and of British
articles as goods “made at home.” The Dominion appears entirely content
under the British Crown, doubtless because the bonds binding her are
not tight. For example, in the World War, Great Britain could not have
conscripted soldiers from the Dominion as France did from Algeria. It
was the people themselves who decided in favour of compulsory military
service, though not until many thousands of young men had already
volunteered and gone overseas. In Australia, conscription was defeated
by the voters of the Commonwealth.
I recently visited Invercargill, the town farthest south on this side
of the world. It is the bottom city of the Pacific, far below the
latitude of Cape Town, at the tip of Africa, and almost as far south
as Punta Arenas at the tail of South America. It is at the extreme
south of New Zealand, and as nice a little city of fifteen thousand
people as you will find anywhere. The town is as well built as any of
the same size in the United States. It has water works, good schools,
a public library, and a beautiful park, upon the waters of which swim
half-a-dozen jet-black swans.
Walking through the streets, I stopped at an agricultural implement
store. It was filled with farming machinery, and I noticed that at
least half of the stock was American. There were several Chicago
drills, two Ohio harvesters, and some Illinois ploughs. I talked with
the proprietor. He said he had a good sale for American reapers, and
all sorts of American farming tools, but that the British and Canadians
are trying to crowd us out of the market. Said he:
“One of your chief competitors is Canada. The Canadian firms will sell
on longer time, and we can get better prices for their goods on that
account. We have to give a discount for cash, and cash sales are much
harder to make.”
On the same street I saw American bicycles in a shop window, and
farther up, American handsaws. At present most of the cottons sold here
come from England, but the people are beginning to buy our print goods.
I saw some in a Wellington dry-goods store and asked the merchant where
he got them. He replied that he had given an American firm a trial
order, and that they were selling well. He showed me his invoice. It
was for eight thousand dollars, and this he called a trial order. Most
firms in the United States would consider it a pretty good one. But
this part of the world is so far away that the merchants must buy a
whole season’s stock in one consignment. And there is no chance for a
re-order.
[Illustration: Coconuts are common to all the islands of the South
Seas, and provide the chief source of income. Niuafoou, an outlying
island of the Tongas, is said to grow the largest in the world.]
[Illustration: Rubber growing is proving profitable in the Fijis,
and nurseries have been established for raising the young trees. The
Fijian’s inborn dislike of work has often made it necessary to import
labour for the plantations.]