IMPLEMENTING OTTAWA.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 237, 6 October 1932, Page 6

IMPLEMENTING OTTAWA.

• It was said of the Versailles Treaty that, since it pleased neither pacifist nor jingo, it was probably not a very unjust compromise. Similarly, after Ottawa we see "die-hard" free traders angry and high protectionists disappointed and apprehensive. Sir Herbert Samuel and others resign from the British Government because they consider free trade has been betrayed, and Mr. Fenton, the Australian Postmaster-General, retires in the interests of protection. Apparently Mr. Fenton took this step not altogether as a result of the Ottawa deliberations. He and others were disturbed by decisions of the Tariff Board that were arrived at before his colleague Mr. Gullett returned from Ottawa. He decided to await Mr. Gullett's explanation of the Ottawa agreement to the Cabinet; and clearly the statement was not satisfactory to this spokesman of the party of protection. This defection' will make the world wonder afresh whether Australia will be able to give Britain what Britain expects. Australia made with Britain an agreement similar to the one with New Zealand. The Australian Government agrees to the principle that "protective duties shall not exceed such a level as will give United Kingdom producers full opportunity of reasonable competition on the basis of the relative cost of economical and efficient production, provided that in the application of such principle special consideration'may be given to the case of industries not fully established." Moreover, there is a Tariff Board in Australia, which there is not in New Zealand, and the Government definitely undertakes that no duty shall be imposed on British goods in excess of the recommendations of that body. From the first there was doubt as to how these undertakings were to be reconciled with the protectionist nationalism that is so strong in Australia, and Mr. Fenton's resignation strengthens this doubt. Free trade circles in Britain will take this development as confirming their belief that the Mother Country got the worse of the bargain at Ottawa.