I didn't know it then, but the New Zealand I was a child in was a closed economy, shuttered behind all sorts of barriers, based in geography and trade law.
Through my remembered eyes, there was much good about it. For example, there was a huge domestic craft pottery industry, whose wares were used across all social classes, who were almost all wiped out by cheap Japanese imports when trade barriers came down.
Almost all, except for a few who displayed the stubbornness that is the mark of a true New Zealander. Like this man whose modest domestic ware has now come back into fashion but we use at home because it's nice to eat off plates made by human hand. paulmelser.co.nz/pottery/
I guess my question is, as we move, perhaps through ineptitude and ideology, to an economy like the New Zealand's of my youth, and it becomes harder for importers to the UK and exporters from it, might we see a revival of domestic cottage industry here?
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