IMPERIAL PREFERENCE

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 105, 29 January 1924, Page 8

IMPERIAL PREFERENCE

A BIG PROBLEM IMPERIAL CONFERENCE DUTY MR. MASSEY AND THE ELECTIONS The electors of Great Britain had an idea that Imperial preference meant extreme protection and the raising of prices of foodstuffs to what they were twenty years ago, said Mr. Massey yesterday, preference was a big problem, but it would have to be settled. Imperial preference occupied the major portion of Mr. Massey’s address yesterday afternoon, as it did in his reply te the civic welcome at Auckland. “It is a matter for very great regret on mv part,” he said, “that the only British country that is not prosperous just now is Britain herself. Part of the business of the Imperial Conference was to advise on measures that would alleviate Britain’s depression. If they have not prosperity at Home then we cannot have prosperity in the Dominions. You have to look for the reason for it. I don’t want people to agree with me because I express an opinion on the subject.' But there are people who can think back a number of years, and who have read the history of tree trade. Seventy y-ars ego, Cobden and his friends established free trade. Britain was then the leading workshop of the world, but times have changed, and America is now, even to the extent of sending a surplus of her manufactured goods to Britain. I have seen excellent German razors retailed in England at a shilling apiece, and field-glasses of a noted German manufacture sold for twenty-five Shillings. These things cannot be produced for the. money, and Germany is doing it behind the depreciated currency, and the British people sit quiet and say nothing. I am afraid, if I lived there, I would make them hear of it, even if they did not make a change. (Hear, bear.) Millionaires are being made in Germany through trading on a depreciated currency, and getting money in good currency for their goods. The bread is being taken from the British workman’s mouth and from the mouths of his family.” “To me it is as simple as can be,” continued the Primo Minister. “They say it is on account of the difficulty between France and Germany. But when that difficulty is brought te an end, the competition of Germany with ether industrial countries will be keener than it was before the w«r. If the party in power now in Britain tackles it, I will give them credit, but they did not tackle it during the election. I dare say the cables told vou it was intendecl to tax food, hut Mr. Baldwin said that there was no intention to tax foodstuffs or raw material. It was not intended that such articles as we exported to Britain mainly would be affected, but he gave a list of certain articles on which it was intended to. grant increased rreference—such things as dried and preserved fruits and unmanufactured tobacco, as well as stabilising preference on sugar. These were lost sight of during the election, and the public were allowed te entertain the wrong impression that it was a case of extreme protection, and that prices would be put up in the way they were twenty years ago. In spite of anything that has been said. I believe the British Government will ask Parliament to grant protection on raw apples, honey, tinned fish, and minor articles, such as those, which are produced here and in ether Dominions. 1 have not the slightest hesitation in saying that preference would be a great boon to the apple growers. Meantime they ar@ importing into Britain more apples from foreign countries than are imported from the Empire. “It is a big problem, and it may go on for years before it is settled, but settled it has got to be.” (Hear, hear.) Mr. Massey said tho Empire should be self-supporting, but he objected te a self-contained Empire, that produced all its wants and exported nothing. He hoped that the matter would be taken up in such a way that would give an opportunity for settlement in the Dominions. There was land in Canada, that had net yet been given over to the plough, that would grow sufficient foodstuffs for the whole Empire. In Australia and South Africa, too, there were large tracts of unoccupied lands.