EMPIRE FREE TRADE.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20028, 9 September 1930, Page 15

EMPIRE FREE TRADE.

AIM OF CRUSADERS. EXAMPLE OP UNITED STATES. "There are many good points about the Empire Free Trade crusade being waged in England by Lord Beaverbrook and his associates, but whether you agree with the principle seems to me to depend on whether you are a free trader or a protectionist," remarked Mr L. A. Paish. British Trade Commissioner for New Zealand, to a reporter of The Pres* yesterday. The sponsors of the movement, he thought, had been unfortunate in christening it. It was not free trade but preference within the Empire which they were advocating with such spirit, and he was sure that Lord Beaverbrook had never intended to upset the particular tariffs which each part of the Empire deemed necessary. A Trading Unit. But there was surely much sound reason in making the Empire a trading unit largely to the exclusion of outsiders, because it could be made j Belf-contained to a great extent. The i big trade which Britain did with foreign nations nad been quoted as an argument against the movement, but against this must be balanced the amount of Empire trade which was at present lost to Britain. He thought, too, that the Empire was large enough to be moulded into a dominant unit. It was foolhardy to talk of a small country, such as the British Isles, being self-contained; that was impossible, but when a country reached a certain size it could be made to rely on its own resources. The success of the United States was an example. That country had placed a tariff ring round herself with the object of making herself into an economic unit; to a large degree she had surceeded. The British Empire was large enough to do that, but it was a bad omen to sep New Zealand and Canada building tariff walls against each other. Mr Paish made it clear that there were arguments against the policy ol : the Empire Free Traders and perhaps the most significant of these was that tli'-"'? should be no tariffs at all. "*ic Conservative P.irtv's policy towards safeguarding had changed markedly of late, but the British working man who saw the cost of living increasing with the advent of such measures still find to be converted to them.