KEEN ECONOMIC WAR

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 33, 8 August 1921, Page 8

KEEN ECONOMIC WAR

HOW TO INCREASE PRODUCTION

NEED FOR I PREFERENTIAL . TRADE. '; • 1 (ritOß OUR OWN CORHEBPONDKNT.) LONDON, 9th Junk Mr. W. F. Massey, Sir J. Allen, Col. L. S. Aniea-y, Lord Clifford of Ohud•leigh, Sir H. Wilson, and Mr. A. H. Astibolt were among the guests of the British Empire Producers' Association i luncheon to the High Commissioner for South Africa. Mr. Ben H. Morgan was iui the chair, a«d he remarked that the organisation in pressing forward the principle of Imperial preference did not limit their interpretation of that term to fiscal preference. They attaolied equal I importance to other factors, such a-s 1m- j perial inter-communication and Imperial i finance., ' They had organised ior next | July an agricultural conference to which delegates from the British Dominions «md colonies had been invited. In the sugar industry! the outloojc waa serious. Wo had to look forward to the fiercest competition from Germany and Austria, j Very much larger supplies could be secured from the West Indies aaid South •and East Africa, India,' and other parts of the Empire, but more particularly •from the beet production of this country 'and also from 'Canada. That increased production could be stimulated by preference. (Cheers.) :

Preference (said Mr. Morgan) was regarded by himself and Ms colleagues as the meet practical means of cementing the Imperial connection between the Old Country and the rest of the Empire, and they had put it forward on every possible occasion during the past year. It' has, of course, been adopted in the foaming of the Safeguarding «f Industries Bill now before Parliament, Empire products being exempted from the operation, of the duties proposed. But fit was not, said the speaker, only preference, in the fiscal sense for which they stood. That was an important element in the working of preference as a genetral policy, but there were others; and Mr. Morgan gave as instances the preferential treatment of British shipping, and the according of a. preference to British enterprise among the many calls made upon British finance. The framing of an agricultural policy for the whole Empire, with a view -to rendering ■ it self-supporting in regard to food and raw materials, is a cherished ideal of the organisation. SOUTH AFRICAN TRADE. ■Sii Edgar Walton cordially approved :of the policy of Imperial preference, the principle of which had been first established by the Dominions in their trade relations with the Mother Country. He irealised the difficulties which presented themselves to statesmen in London in adopting that "principle. ' Last year South Africa imported £8,000,000 worth 1 ■of apparel, of which 93 per cent, came from' the United Kingdom; and of cotj ton goods, they imported 10i millions, of whicH 83 per cent, came from the' United Kingdom. Meanwhile the trade .with the United States had' decreased. As illustrating the difficulty which some- ' times occurred in the way of doing bueiaiess between the Dominions and the Mother Country in face of strenuous forleign competition, he stated that the lowlest British tender for railway materials for his Government was £39.000 as lagainsfc a Belgian tender for JE2BJOOO. It was impossible for any Dominion to pay the. enormous difference between those (figures in order to bring trade to Great Britain. . We had won the war in the Ifield; we must not, lose the economic ■war, or we should go under.

The position was clearly stated by Col v lAmery when he observed that the outlook for the Old Country,; if it stood alone, would be a gloomy one, faced as lit is by an enormous dett, increased icosts of production., arid narrowed marIkets abroad. "But Great Britain (says the Daily Telegraph), does not stand alone; and salvation for her and for' each of the British States in the future lies (in the development, by deliberate policy, tof the vast opportunities inherent in ithe great -political and commercial complex known ac the British Empire."