EMPIRE PREFERENCE.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18140, 1 August 1924, Page 14

EMPIRE PREFERENCE.

THE COMMONS DEBATE. MR BALDWIN'S GRAVE ' / WARNING. 'TSOM OC2 OWK COEBBSPOXMNT.) LONDON, June 15. After following the debate on Imperial Preference which has lasted during the past two days, one is inspired with a feeling of hope for the future of the Empire. Hope arises from the fact that the question of Preference shows signs of emerging from Toe region of party politics. It is true that the Imperial Conference resolutions were defeated, by •majorities ranging from 6 to 20, but Had Mr Ramsay T.iaeDonald not found it necessary to play for the future of his partv there would have been no majorities. As it was the Prime Minister was exceedingly uneasy, and still more unhappy was Mr J. n. Thomas (Colonial Secretary). Party expedients seem to have prompted thlm to vote against the Presences. In this thev were more feeb'e than y\r XJovd George, who, though he absern.ed "himself from the debate, vet paired in favour cf those.items of preference which did not mean any increase ot taxation. There fees seldom been a greater amount of beart-searching. Never had- the members of toe Labour Party been constrained to turn their attention so much to the interests of the Dominions. Although they have failed to win a moral (victory they have had a lesson in thinking Imperially. It •is understood that Dr. Haden On«st has been made Chairman of the Labour Committee on Imperial Policy, and he it was who tried to lead his fellowLabour members in the direction or Preference. He was not satisfied with tho purelv negative attitude of the Front Bench, he said. Freetrade is not ffoin? to solve anv problems at all by itself. He begged his colleagues not £b be led.astrav bv the Freetrade banner, and exhorted them at least to ■yrtV l for the first four resolutions, adding: "I should very much like this country to persuade our brothers in the Commonwealth to enter into closer association with us in the development and exploitation of our enormous resources, with the_;deliberate object of raising the standard of life of the of this country.'' And, aeain: •"We-must have Preference as part of ■a, very much bigger scheme of Imperial organisation, and if we couple with that some kind of guarantee to improve the standard of life of the workins people of this country I think all Parties topetber will make a 'Very long step in advance."

Soma Pertinent Facts. Dr. Guest was not singular in these ■, ~ opinions. Mx Johnston, who hails ' c: from Clackmannan, pointed out to his party that "we have already in our Dominions four Labour Governments out of six,", and:: that the Imperial idea was not a perquisite of the Tory J*arty, and he proceeded to enumerate facts extremely pertinent to a "Lafconr" Government.' "Australia," he ,;. -said, "requires a 48 hours' week, and __ in' many of her industries a 44 hours' ""' week; In Australia the minimum wage in the skilled industries is £4 Is 6d. Australia '''Happens to produce dried . .fruits, iand she can raise about 10 per cent, of what we consume. In this '*;••'■ respect her only other competitor is Greece. I am told that the condition V r .. Greece in these plantations for the pro>.r duction of fruit is not a 48 hours or _/. 'BB hours week; but. as a matter of "~ fact, they work all the hours that God sends and a few more, and what their '■"*■-'' wages are nobody knows, and yet we import onr currants from Greece." , ; Mr Maxton, of Glasgow fame, held ••':: , similar opinions: "I cannot see how'we •"■■' .are going to help the British working Mian by saying to him that any goods , [that are produced anywhere, under any conditions whatever, in sweated dens or ?f- ,in swindlers' back shops, should be iX allowed to come into this country without stop or barrier, irrespective of the fe effect ti at they may have on the livea of our people.**

Free Trade Empire. On the whole, the deb&io followed party lines with a good deal of repeti"tion- of familiar arguments. The most L,v Striking contribution was made by Mr Baldwin, who spoke seriously of the reflect there might bo on the Dominions 6hould the resolutions agreed to at the A Imperial Conference fail to become J : effective. He nad no fear that the •Dominions; in such a case, would re- «;. ply in a spirit of pique, but he visual *', ,ised the possibility thao in time political ties might weaken, and the Domin•ions might be tempted to turn to other ~ countries vhich Would offer them advantages we declined to concede. Recognising that it was impossible to get the House to agree to all the ten resolutions, Mr Baldwin put in a .-. ' special plea for the first four, which '_? give a preference out of existing taxes. ■&; -These, ne pointed out, involved no invasion of Free Trade principles, and their adoption would keep the whole question alive and not slam the door Jin. the face of the Dominions. Markets for British goods and space for British population, were what we required, and he asked the Government whether they had thought of gettine together a oody of economic experts ~.. , not identfied with party, to study eoientincatlv tht- whole Question of Kmpire development awl the economic Systems suited to' its various parts. As «$ 'nn ideal he pictured an Empire with & Free Trade between its component H parts, and a tariff fir revenue purposes is only outside the whole ring.

P "An Alternative. 9|: Mr Baldwin bad been struck by the gs great discrepancy between the prices received by the producers, and those *£ paid bv the consumers. He wanted the JS facts brought out, and he had made jg* tlie declaration that if he were returnhl ed to power one of his first acts would be an investigation by Kuyal Conimis*j» bion into these matters. "If, for the .f§ moruent, the country will not take a teitain ccaiso of action, we must try V<v to find others. Is it not possible to e£ :ter '"to. some arrangements with ■«. xho Dominions by which the enormous ** r.nioiint of foodstuffs we require may u~V be obtained solely from them, brougli> J* :nto this country at cost price, and *■< distributed with the least possible margin—(Cries of "Oh!" and cheers} I* to obtain ' n exchange the free la* entry of our manufactured goods into *** these Dominions, where such goods did compete with their own! Something *<* .if that kind, he believed, might last |£ for the best part of a generation, if it ■"* were arranged. The whole situation JJ would-then have to be reviewed if the l j; populations of the Dominions had sufxiciently increased, and if they desired' ,"X to become, more than they were now, '* manufacturing nations. If the whole '* of the resolutions were defeated, the ', Government would gravely imperil the 1 future of the Empire. (Cries of "No," and cheers.)- The Dominions could believe nothing else than that the House of Commons had deliberately come to i ; the conclusion that it would have nothi iag to do with Preference. The Do- * ainions -would reluctantly seek elae- * where, for what this country had ref- ft»ed them. There was a vast trade , % %twtween the, Dominions and this counV there was no reaam why that

should always be the case, and the diversion of any" of that volume of trade would tell not only on the industries of this country but on our shipping, too. Even the passage of only the first four resolutions would keep the whole question alive and make the Dominions realise that the House, without distinction of party, was willing so far as it could to make arrangements.

Mr Asquith's Scorn. Mr Asquith crossed the floor of the House to the accompaniment of Liberal cheers and took his stand at the Opposition side of the table. He delved into the dead controversies of the past, and brought forward no new constructive suggestion. Glancing down on Mr Baldwin, he claimed that he had underestiniated (he would not say perverted) the verdict given by the countrv. Mr Baldwin did not think that it included the condemnation of these resolutions. It certainly did. Mr Asquith was inclined to be scornful about the character of the resolutions. They reminded him of the itinerant vendor of vegetables in Bagdad, who perambulated the streets and cried: "In the name of the I'rophet, figs!" The resolutions, in fact, were an attenuated, emasculated, anaemic, and even apocryphal version of the full-blooded gospel of Imperial Preference. In other words, they were mere leather and prunella. The Empire, he snid, could not produce all the food and raw material we needed. He welcomed the suggestion of the late Government that there should be a permanent Imperial Economic Committee.

Sin With a Smiling Face. Mr Mac-Donald snid that the Opposition knew very well that the resolutions did not amount to very much. They had pruned and pared them to make them respectable, and had produced four innocent-looking resolutions upon which to challenge the Government in the hope that Ministerialists would fiill into the snare laid for their feet. These four resolutions, however, must be taken with all the others. They were merely the preliminary declaration to the introduction of a full programme of Imperial Preference. It was not a case of voting on the four resolutions according to their verbal meaning, but according to the spirit of those who drafted • the resolutions. This was not the first time that sin had come into the world with a smiling face. Preference to Australia meant that the Australian conwumer, without abandoning his protective ideas, without in any way departing from his conception of national economy, said: "Because you are the Mother Country, because there is some relationship between us" which does not exist between ourselves and any other country, because you give us this, outside that which is" declared in commerial treaties, we will express our gratitude to, and friendship with, you in a peculiar arrangement by which we keep up aur tariff walls against you, quite effectively for our own purpose, but lower them slightly in your favour in relation to foreign ex-porters who are outside the Commonwealth." That was Imperial Preference from the Australian and Canadian point of view; but what was this thing, called by the same name, which the Unionist members wished to impose upon the country? It w&s not a thing which could be recognised as within the Government's views' of sound national economy. In effect, the Government would have to recreate not only . our relations with the self-governing Dominions, but to produce a, new fiscal policy with regard to foreign countries. •Mr Snowden who wound up the debate for the Government, maintained that a policy of Preference would inevitahlv tie the hands of any future Chancellor of the Exchequer in the remission of taxation. In good electioneering style he dangled the hope of the tot;il abolition of food taxes before the country, and declared that. ths hope woidd have to be abandoned if the Preference resolutions were adopted.

Emerging From tie Party Stage. Mr Austen Chamberlain, who concluded the debate for the Opposition, 'declared that he was a Protectionist aind Prefercntialist. He stood, he said, as one who frankly recognised that having appealed to the country on a general taiiff and failed to get a verdict, that tariff could only become a practical issue when it became the policy of no single party, but of other parties who were driven by the force of events. - The Chancellor of the Exhe said, was a Socialist grafted on to the narrowest type of'mid-Vic-torian pedant. He belonged to thot school which endangered our Empire in the middle of the last century by its indifference to Colonial aspirations. This controversy was emerging from the party stage. It was true that the other members did not go the -whole way with them. There was a cry of •\Uoyd George," which led Mr Cham"berhiin to pay his tribute to the courage and consistency of the member for Carnarvon. If every Dominion tomorrow presented the Government with an ultimatum that every preference would be taken off if no response were made, Would the Government dare to take the consequences ,of that refusal ? Underlying the economic argument there was something greater. Were material things with the Dominions of no consequence? If that side were neglected, what about the moral side? The first resolution, freeing from import duty figs, raisins, jjlums, and currants of Empire origin, was defeated, by 273 votes t0'272, majority u. The second resolution reducing the duty on Empire-grown tobacco was rejected by 281 votes to 271, majority i 3. The third resolution, reducing theduty on Empire wines, was rejected by 235 votes to 2f33, majority 17. The fourth resolution, stabilising the existing preference on Empire grown sugar lor a period of ten years, was defeated by 283 votes to 263, majority 20. The remaining resolutions were not moved by Mr Baldwin, in accordance with .an agreement with the House.

The Bald Fact. It is something, says "The Times," that so much energy should haVe been displayed in support of the resolutions, but it is the bald fact that they were defeated, which unfortunately will bcom largest across the sens. "The peoples of the Dominions, it is to be feared, w;ill not trouble their heads about distinctions, nor "are they likely to attach to the plans for their advantage of which Mr Thomas and Mr Mac- ' Donald have spoken the moral or the. material value which these projects may deserve. The one thing which they will see is that the Labour Government and all the Liberals who belong to the school of Mr Asquith have offered a determined opposition to preference in any and every form. From that broad conclusion they may but too probably draw inferences as to the feelings of these great parties towards them which more than words will be needed to obliterate."