Word: zealander
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Meanwhile, however, the New Zealand Labor Government, under Prime Minister Michael Joseph Savage, elected first in 1935 and re-elected last year, has raised wages, reduced working hours, increased Government insurance, liberalized pensions, has raised taxes and has scared capital away. Moreover, world wool prices suddenly dropped. New Zealand found herself exporting only a few million dollars worth of goods more than she was importing, so that debt services in London were harder than ever to meet. The country's sterling reserves dwindled from $143,085,000 to $34,035,000. On top of this...
Like many another minister who comes to London these days, Mr. Nash wanted to borrow money. New Zealand's Minister of Finance, Mr. Nash is also the author and executor of a comprehensive economic plan designed to turn agricultural New Zealand into a nation which can at least partially produce its own manufactured goods, and thus be less dependent on world prices. Although realizing that New Zealand will not for a long time be able to supply all its wants, Minister Nash's idea is to build factories to enable the country to manufacture "secondary" articles...
...Within a century," Mr. Nash wrote, "New Zealand has been transformed from a virgin wilderness into a land where 1,600,000 people enjoy the amenities of modern life. Wealth has been won and is being won in rich abundance. . . . The country has proved a valuable field for British emigration and investment, a first-rate market, a dependable source of foodstuffs...
...economic plan, what was being tried out was a form of "insulation" as distinguished from "isolation." "New Zealand does not seek isolation from the rest of the world, and least of all from the United Kingdom," he wrote. "What we do want is to guard our people as best we can against the disastrous fluctuations that have hitherto marked our economy...
With the British bankers and Government negotiators in person Minister Nash was equally persuasive. He signed with British President of the Board of Trade Oliver Stanley a joint memorandum outlining New Zealand's future trade policy in which Great Britain recognizes New Zealand's necessity for reducing imports, approves the methods adopted. For her part, New Zealand promises to foster Anglo-New Zealand trade, assures Great Britain that no uneconomic industries will be protected. Most important, Britain granted New Zealand $45,000,000 in credits ($25,000,000 to be spent on defense, $20,000,000 on imports...