BRITAIN’S CUSTOMERS

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 232, 27 June 1932, Page 8

BRITAIN’S CUSTOMERS

Viewpoint on Ottawa

‘‘PREJUDICED MARKETS”

An angle of British public opinion on the Imperial Economic Conference at Ottawa that has received little attention in New Zealand has been mentioned by a correspondent. He forwards a leading article from the “Dundee Courtier and Advertiser" warning Britain against sacrificing too much to the Dominions at Ottawa, and thus prejudicing her markets in other countries. The .article says:--“The question addressed by Lora Scone to the President of the Board of Trade on the subject of a trade negotiation with Denmark expresses -an anxiety which is agitating the minds of an increasing number of people in the country. “The Danish Government, as is well known, is anxious to open negotiations for a trade treaty definitely and deliberately aiming at an increase of British sales in Denmark in order to approximate to a better balanced trade between that country and its chief customer.

“Lord Scone asked whether a conference on the subject might not be invited now, and received from Major Colville the stereotyped reply that negotiations of this character cannot be undertaken till after the Imperial Conference at Ottawa.

A Second String Recommended.

“The growing feeling is that a great deal too much is being sacrificed to this conference at Ottawa; that we are going to enter it at a heavy disadvantage, and will probably come out of it sheared and shorn. “Our chances of doing real business at it would be immensely improved if those attending it were aware that simultaneously we were treating with other countries as well as the Dominions. • “In this connection there are certain facts that ought to have a prominent place in the public mind and in the mind of the politicians, and one of the chief of them is that there are a score of countries in the world with which it is possible for us to make a much more profitable bargain for ourselves than we are ever likely to make with the Dominions. Denmark Is one of them, and typical of the others are the Argentine and most of the .South American Republics.

Self-Sufficient Dominions. “The reasons are obvious. With a single exception the Dominions aim at being self-sufficient in the matter of manufactured goods, and they have gone a long way toward attaining that ideal. And they do not intend to surrender at Ottawa an inch of the market for that Class of goods which their protectionist tariffs have secured them. “What else have they to offer us in return for the privileges in the British market which they are going to ask. and which, in fact,' under our tariff they are now receiving? “That is a question to which nobodv has been able to give an answer worth listening to: and at the present moment the best thev seem capable of offering is moro of the kind of pre eronce which at the last conference Mr. Thomas characterised as ‘humbug, which, according to Professor Leacock, of McGill University, in his recent .book, ‘was just about the right word’ for it.”