PREFERENTIAL TRADE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXX, Issue 21, 25 July 1910, Page 7

PREFERENTIAL TRADE.

AUSTRALIAN PREMIER'S NONCOMMITTAL ATTITUDE. By Telegraph. — Preim Association.— Copyright. MELBOURNE, 25th July. Mr. Fisher, the Australian Prime Minister, referring to Mr. Asquith'i statement regarding preferential trade, adopted a ntoi-committal attitude. The present flexibility of the' relations of the Dominions with Great Britain on this question was, he said, the- best safeguard for the integrity oi the Empire. The Dominions 6hould be left free to make their own tariff arrangements. [In the House of Commons, when the second reading stage of tho Appropriation Bill was reached, Mr. Balfour (Leader of the Opposition) warned Mr. Asquith that Canada was negotiating with other countries, and would be compelled to gradually diminish the preferential advantage she was according t)u» Motherland. He added : "The other Dominions will doubtless ba compelled to do similarly." Mr. Astyrfth said : "The Government would w*leowi» interImperial free-trade, but that is impossible wbil« the Dominions MtOf&ted their own industries. Cheap food and raw material &ra «ss«nti&l to us. Britain will not consent to taxes advancing their cost." Ho said he did not complain of the exclusion of British goods from the oversea Dominioub »vhen they wcro competing with colonial manufactures. That was the price Great Britain gladly paid for a free and loyal Empire, which she would tiofc have had if she had continued to dictate \ fiscal policy to the Dominions. Complete freedom was the b*st security for ,' unity.]