TRADE WITH BRITAIN

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22139, 19 June 1935, Page 14

TRADE WITH BRITAIN

NEEDS OF DOMINIONS A SHELTERED MARKET "We cannot have prosperity in New Zealand until we have a sheltered market in Great Britain for the Dominions' primary products, and peace cannot be assured until England breaks away from her policy of becoming entangled with foreign interests," said Mr. F. W. Doidge, speaking at a luncheon of the Auckland branch of the New Zealand Institute of Secretaries in Milne and Choree's Reception Hall yesterday. Mr. Doidge spoke on the subject. '"How New Zealand is Affected by Foreign Trade Treaties and foreign Political Entanglements." Mr. Doidge, who was prominently connected with Lord Beaverbrook's campaign for Empire preference, said that up to 1931 Great Britain had been a dumping ground for other countries surplus manufactured and primary products. To-day, however, Britain's manufacturing industries were fully protected but full justice had not yet been done to her home farmers or to the primary producers of the Empire. Mr. Doidge claimed that the system of trade treaties negotiated by Mr. Walter Runciman with foreign Powers had proved a total failure. With that policy came the quotas and restrictions frhich were keeping New Zealand producers in penury. It was true that the English farmer needed protection, but against foreign producers, not Empire farmers. In the years since the war 500,000 British farm labourers had been driven off the land, yet England was still spending £200,000,000 a year in purchasing foodstuffs from foreign countries

"1 think that the Dominions are partly to blame, for in my opinion the British authorities nro partly playing a game of bluff," added Mr. Doidge, who expressed the opinion, however, that with the reconstruction of the British Cabinet there would bo a greater disposition to meet the Dominions.

A motion of thanks, proposed by Mr J. G. Garland, was carried with applause.