CANADA AND AUSTRALIA.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 152, 29 June 1926, Page 11

CANADA AND AUSTRALIA.

TREATY IN PERIL. A REAL DANGER. "The Minister or Finance at Ottawa has been warning the House of Commons that it may not long have the Australian Treaty to criticise," 6ays the Vancouver "Daily Province." "The Commonwealth," he, says, "may at any moment put an end to it. "There is no doubt the danger is real and serious, Australia has already cancelled the preference she has been giving to South African goods, and, if the provocation is great enough, she can just as easily give the necessary six months' notice and denounce her agreement with Canada. Australia's exports to this country do not cut any important figure in the total trade of the Commonwealth. In nine yeara they have never amounted to even one per cent of the country's exports. In five yeare they have averaged only a little more than a million dollars a year. Great Britain, Ceylon, Egypt, Fiji, India, Hongkong, New Zealand, South Africa, the Straits Settlements, Belgium, China, France, Germany, Italy, Holland, the Dutch East Indies, the Pacific Islands, the Philippines and the United States all take more Australian goods than we do. So the continuance of the treaty has no glowing prospects for the Commonwealth people, and the agreement has never been popular there. It was entered into principally for two reasons, to promote trade within the Empire and in the hope that Australia's soldier farmers,- who are devoting themselves largely to the production of dried fruit, might find a market in this country for their, output. "On the other hand, Australia offers Canada a market of real importance, and one that, properly cultivated, should be capable of very great development. The treaty give 3us advantages on paper and canned fish—both staple products of British Columbia—and on automobiles and. automobile parts. "These things are important in themselves. But the great value of the treaty is that it marks a point in tbe expansion of inter-Imperial trade, from which further expansion is possible. If we permit the treaty to be destroyed, we shall be a long time in reaching so advantageous a position again."