The Press FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1934. The Delegation to Australia

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21323, 16 November 1934, Page 10

The Press FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1934. The Delegation to Australia

The Ministerial delegation which left for Australia yesterday has two very important tasks in front of it. The first is to attempt a settlement of the exasperating dispute which has hampered trade between Australia and New Zealand for more than two years. The second is to discuss with the Commonwealth Government the forthcoming negotiations with Great Britain on the regulation of imports of dairy produce and meat. Whether there is any prospect of the first task being successfully discharged- it is difficult to say. The trade dispute with Australia, which began with Australian restrictions on the entry of New Zealand potatoes, has now become so complicated that the public has little knowledge of the issues involved. What it does know is that there has been a remarkable lack of candour on the part of both the governments concerned, and that the real motives behind the embargoes have never been made properly clear. Retaliation, the protection of domestic industries, and the prevention of insect pests and blights all seem to have played a part. It is not at all creditable that sister Dominions should be engaged in a petty trade war, particularly as both are urgently in need of outlets for their primary exports; and it must be hoped that the visit of the New Zealand Ministers to Australia will result in the squabble being settled once and for all. The second task which faces the New Zealand delegation is admittedly a difficult one, for it is hard to decide whether or not it is desirable for the Australian and New Zealand Governments to act in unison over the question of quotas on dairy produce and meat. It has been obvious for many years that New Zealand is willing to give much greater concessions to the British manufacturer than Australia is in order to maintain her share of Great Britain's import trade. Has she on this account a claim to special preference from Great Britain? " Hitherto," said " The Times " in a leading article about a month ago, "no claim of this kind has ever " been advanced- by any Dominion " because of the general feeling that " it would be invidious for the Brit- " ish Government to discriminate "between different parts of the " oversea Empire." The Dairy Industry Commission took a very different view:—

It has been said that there can be no discrimination within the Empire, but we think that this statement, in the bald form in which it is usually made, is misleading and ambiguous. We agree, as a broad statement of principle, that New Zealand cannot claim any arbitrary discrimination in her favour; but should not the principle of non-dis-crimination be based on equality of reciprocity? There can b> no injustice in r'vmg to other Empire countries equal preference to that accorded to New Zealand, provided they accord to the United Kingdom the same preference as New Zealand does. Equally, there is no injustice in according to New Zealand preference for preference. In addition to any scheme of differential treatment as between Empire and foreign countries that may be adopted by the United Kingdom Government, we may fairly claim that an equitable scheme of differential treatment of Empire countries should be devised, which would give preference, as to both quotas and import duties (if the latter be imposed), to those Dominions that maintain low tariffs against goods exported from the United Kingdom and do not dump their produce in the United Kingdom under the shelter of subsidies.

This seems to be the, only fair and reasonable view of the situation. The principle of " no discrimination "within the Empire" must, if rigidly applied, reduce the Imperial economic system to nonsense. New Zealand's membership of the Empire becomes, from the economic point of view, a disability if it means that she must accept from Great Britain the same treatment as is accorded to Dominions which impose high tariffs on British goods. No system of Imperial economic agreements can be anything but inequitable and irksome which does not make due allowance for the diverse economic structures of the Dominions. It is possible, indeed probable, that this view will not be acceptable to the Australian Government; and in that case it is not likely that the conversations with the New Zealand delegation will have any very tangible result.