OTTAWA ISSUES

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 221, 14 June 1932, Page 8

OTTAWA ISSUES

Preference Question BRITAIN’S POSITION An Australian’s Viewpoint Problems to be considered at the forthcoming Ottawa Conference were discussed by Mr. R. N. Carrington, who will represent the Australian United Press, Ltd., there, on his arrival by the Monowai from Sydney yesterday. Mr. Carrington said that it was plain even at this stage that representatives of the Dominions would ask Great Britain for preferential treatment for their primary products. Great Britain would then have to consider seriously her own position as a manufacturing country in respect to her non-British customers, who might suffer for any preference granted the Dominions. For example, he said, Australia might be granted a butter preference against Denmark. The Home Government would then have to consider what effect that action would have on her exports to that country. The same problem would apply in many other Instances. Canada had a larger population than Aiist’Xlia and possibly could grant a. preference on British goods without interfering much with many of her secondary industries. The United States afforded her a market near home. Position of Australia, The manufacturing industries of Australia, however, had developed through local demand, occasioned by a high tariff, and there were now about 25,000 factories in Australia, employing approximately half a million hands, with an annual wage bill of about £lOO,000,000, said Mr. Carrington. The total value of the secondary Industries was £158,562,000, as against £294,749,000 for the primary industries for the year ending June 31. It would thus be seen how important were the secondary industries to Australia. Some manufactured goods went to New Zealand and the East, but Japan, China, and Java were low-wage coun-

tries, and could not buy Australian goods generally, Mr. Carrington continued. The European concessions in Southern Asia were drawn chiefly from the Homeland, and their purchasing sympathies lay there. Australian manufacturers would look awry at any de-' cision come to at' Ottawa to jeopardise their own industries.

There were, however, many items, such as watches, cameras, motor-cars, race glasses, and the like not manufactured in Australia, and perhaps substantial preferences in Great Britain’s favour might be exchanged in regard to those. No doubt'a time limit would be put on any new schedules adopted. Both Mr. Bruce and Mr. Guellet, Minister for Customs, could be relied upon to protect the interests of Australia in that respect should new industries be started. Question of Policy. The Australian delegation had not yet expressed any definite policy to be adopted at the conference, which might last four or five weeks, Mr. Carrington continued. Mr. Bruce, Honorary Minister and Assistant Treasurer, who was leading the delegation, would deliver an important speech at Vancouver. The conference would no doubt consider the proposed “quota system,” devised to provide that only a certain fixed quantity of produce should lie admitted from each Dominion and other exporting countries in definite ratios. Such a proposal at this distance from the conference seemed prima facie untenable. It ran against the fundamental law of supply and demand, and fixed a rigid rule where generally great elasticity was demanded. Its advocates were not likely to succeed. Britain’s Foreign Trade. Probably many questions would resolve themselves into a matter of statistics, which would be supplied by the representatives of different groups and officials attending the conference. There would be eight delegates from Great Britain, but the entourage would total 100. They would determine whether Great Britain could really afford to jettison her foreign trade, conditional to the whole of the Dominions binding themselves to take her manufactured goods in exchange for preference on primary products. Figures might show that even were such a policy laid down and adopted there would still be a huge surplus of primary products on the one hand and manufactured goods in Great Britain on the other, which would need to be disposed of in countries not party to the agreement, Mr. Carrington added. It was consideration of the attitude of those countries that would prove the hardest nut for the conference to crack.