RECIPROCITY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXI, Issue 134, 7 June 1906, Page 4

RECIPROCITY.

♦ As we pointed out a few days ago, Mr. Seddon's emotions with regard to reciprocal trade with the Commonwealth have, if his Australian speeches are to be taken as correctly expressing them, passed within a few days all the way from a stony frigidity through a zone of becoming coyness and diffidence to a powerful and overmastering passion which will allow him ro peace until its desire is accomplished. Three weeks ago he declared that he had no concern about tho question at all, but at the Parliumentnry dinnev in Melbourne on Friday last "he said ho vould return to New Zealand a disappointed man unless his visit lesulted in closer commercial relationship being established. He was satisfied the people in the various Stales of Australia, that he had visited favoured reciprocity. He would recommend removing tlie duties on Australian sugar." It would have been better art if this strange revolution of opinion and sentiment had been le^s complete or less Budden, but it is a familiar fact that tho exigencies of stage management often require a' compression which does not accord with the tedious chronological developments of ordinary life, and it is, at any rate, a matter for hearty congratulation that tho fifth act of Mr. Sedden's Australian drama finda the hero in happy agreement with the leading statesmen of the Commonwealth iv desiring some reduction of the tariff barriers which at present hamper trade between tho two countries. The contrast between the reception given in Australia by both press and politicians to Sir Joseph Ward's suggestions on the subject a few months ago and their present attitude proves that Mr. Seddon is not the only ono who haa changed his tone, and that there has been a good deal of "bluff" on both sides. Now that the preliminary 6p-uring has been satisfactorily concluded, both sides appear genuinely anxious to settle down to reasonable business. A remarkable thing about $ha clause in tho Preferential and Reciprocal Trad© Act of 1903, which, as was stated in tho first of our special articles on the subject must govern any reciprocal -treaty 'entered into by this colony with Australia, is that it was not in tho Bill as originally designed and introduced by the Government. Unconditional preference for British goods, and. reciprocity with any foreign country willing to reduce its tariff in our favour, represented the whole ground of the original Bill, and.it was on the motion of a privat-o member that the necessary clunige- was made. The only clause dealing with reciprocity in the Bill as introduced read : — '■' Where any country not being part of the British dominions reduces or abolishes, or proposes to recluod or abolish, tho dutj' on any product or manufacture of New Zealand, the Governor may enter into an agreement -with that country, etc.'* j and Mr. Taylor's amendment for the elimination of tho word "not" before "being part of the British dominions " being carried, the clause took its present shape as section 12, a new clause on the old linesbeing subsequently added to permit of reciprocity with foreign countries also. A message from Melbourne to-day states that Mr. Se3don's negotiations -with Mr. Dejkin over the reciprocal proposals have been " narrowed down to two or three issues of a somewhat unimportant nature," and that these may be settled by a compromise. At present wo are as much in the dark about these negotiations as about those of 1G97 between New Zealand and South Australia. "Tho real stumbling-block," as Mr. W. Nathan explained in our columns a day or two ago, "is the similarity of the products of the two countries "j and Mr. S. Carroll, Secretary of tho Chamber of Commerce, could not see much except sugar and win© on which we could grant Australian preference. What concessions we could get in return is a more difficult problem. "What goods has iNew Zealand that Australia is without?" asks tho .Sydney iMonring Herald. " What manufactures? What produce?" and it proceeds to suggest the reduction of our heavy duties on sugar and wine as a possible ground for "reasonable concessions in return." Even with regard to sugar and ■wine there may be some difficulty, for sugar, according to tho Premier's promise, repeated with emphaois in Australia, of a free breakfasttable, ought to go on the freo list altogether, and the proposed 'cheapening of wine may give tho teetotal party a welcome grievance in a rather dull season. To unfermented grapes they would hardly take exception, und those, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, Australia would be plad to supply, carriage paid, for 4d per lb, instead of the present rate of half a crown, which would be a boon indeed, except to the producers. But speculation will probably be at an end with tho publication of the proposals in tho course of tho next few days.