The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. TUESDAY, APRIL 11, 1922. RECIPROCITY WITH AUSTRALIA

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 86, 11 April 1922, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

TUESDAY, APRIL 11, 1922. RECIPROCITY WITH AUSTRALIA

For the cause that lacks assistanoe, For the torong that needs resistance, Vor the future in the distance, And the good that tec can do.

The New Zealand Minister of Ous-i toms reached a provisional agreement with the Commonwealth Government last week. It may be some time before the details are known; in the meantime we are informed that "it is understood the concessions faveur primary ratter than secondary industries." This is the kind of agreement that might have been expected. The difficulties in the way of framing a reciprocal tariff agreement between New Zealand and Australia are that the two countries produce the same things, and that each—especially Australia —in trying to build up manufactures behind a protective tariff. The balance of trade is now heavily against New Zealand, Australian exports to us having increased at a far greater rate than our exports to Australia. In 1010 we exported £2,010,000 worth of goods to Australia, and ten years later, in 1020, the value was only £2,351,000, but in those ten years the value of imporU rose from £2,359,000 to £10,01)5.667. We therefore imported from Australia in 1920 more than four times as much as we exported. How one-eided this traffic has become one can see by a glance ,at the tables in the Year-Book srhowing exports and imports according to articles. The list of articles we send to Australia occupies less than a page; the list of Australian articles imported into New Zealand covers "four pages. Our largest items of export in l!) 20 were hides £476,000, (lax £225,000, and timber £685,000. Xo other item of local production exceeded .£50,000. In the list of importe from Australia, however, there are numerous heavy items of raw material and manufactured goods. We took £585,000 worth of wheat, half a million in coal, over a million in boots and shoes and £107,000 in hate and caps. Ironware, paints, leather and leather goods, drugs, confectionery, and fruits were all heavy items. Apparently next to nothing is known of the lines on which Mr. Downie Stewart has been working in Melbourne, but his statements there go to show that he sympathises with the New Zealand ■Protectionists who have been afraid lest reciprocity should mean a lowering of dutiee on Australian manufactures. Indeed, his attitude reveals a curious reversal. New Zealand prior to the tariff revision of laet year gave Australian goods the same tariff treatment as English, whereas Australia confined her preference to goods from Britain. Then a cry arose for a retaliatory measure that would induce Australia to give us I better treatment, and Australian goods ; were placed in the "general" section of the new tariff, for purposes of negotiai tiou; that is to say, they could be removed from thefe on completion of a reciprocal agreement between the comii tries. Australia had taken a similar letcp in respect to New Zealand. When Mr. Downie Stewart reached Melbourne the Commonwealth Government submitted as a basis for a treaty of trade the mutual exchange of the British preferential tariff, but Mr, Stewart could not accept this. The curious thing is that | we would have been willing to accept this a year or two previously. We already gave Australia preference, and if Australia had proposed to admit us to the same privilege we should have been very pleased. We can account for Mr. Downie Stewart's refusal of this offer only on the assumption that he has been influenced by New Zealand manufacturers, some of whom have taken advantage of the feeling against Australia not only to press the Government not to give Australian goods better treati ment, but to move for more protection generally. The problem is complicated I by the fact that the Australian tariff is generally higher than the New Zealand. . A Dunedin manufacturer told Mr. I Stewart before he left New Zealand that iif Australian goods coming in here paid !30 per cent, they did not want their j goods going to Australia to pny 40 per 'cent. New Zealander. 1 -, hovever, must j make up their minds that Australia is j committed to a policy of high protec- . tion and nothing will move the Austraj Han Government. We would be sorry to i see this country climb to quite the : same height, and we hope that in his : negotiations Mr. Downie Stewart has had an eye for the New Zealand consuper as well ag one for the njanufac- , turer.