THROUGH TARIFF REFORM

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 106, 1 November 1923, Page 7

THROUGH TARIFF REFORM

BUT NOT THE MILLENNIUM

BRITISH PREMIER'S SPEECH.

I (UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION.—COPf RI'iHT.) (AUSTRALIAN-NEW ZEALAND CABLE ASSOCIATION.) LONDON, 31st October. Except for a brief reference .to the League of Nations, Mr. Baldwin's Swansea speech was on tariff reform. He received an ovation irom start to finish. Mr. Baldwin said the- things vital to the prosperity of the nation were, first, peace at home and abroad, and, second, that the national savings should be adequate to furnish the capital required for the renewal and expansion of our machinery of production; third, that neith-. er employers nor workmen should be unfairly exposed to the merciless attacks of foreign competition, when foreign competitors were able to entrench themselves behind the walls of their, own tariff; fourth, we- should do our utmost to check the one-sided development of industries which had drawn a million people from! the land, and upset the healthy proportion which ought to exist between urban and rural populations. In the old fiscal campaign, Mr. Baldwin said, there had been much exaggeration* on both sides. Cobden himself saw the angel of peace descending on • England clothed in untaxed calico. Personally he did not say that any change was going to bring the millennium, but the strain on some industries due to foreign dumping was sufficient to break the hearts of all but the stoutest. INTERESTS OF THE-WORKERS Mr. Baldwin went on in an effort to detach Labour frcm the Free Trade Party. . He said: "I do not expect any of my proposals to gain support from orthodox Liberals, but I shall be surprised if I fail to obtain some support from orthodox Labour, which is naturally Protectionist. The ideal of trade unionism is to preserve the standard of life. This is innate in the Briton and should never be let go: But the hope of industry, lies in Capital and Labour alike realising that its sectional interests are only half of the whole. The right way to regard cheap production is to consider the organisation and management, but to remember that if the standard of life is to be sacrificed, trade is not worth having. The workmen of the country have already instituted a form of protection against old age, ill-health, and unemployment. Workmen also endeavour to protect their standard of life through trade unions, yet leave themselves entirely unprotected against attack by free, Tinrestricted imports produced by labour with which they cannot compete. This ■is indeed a very lopsided form of Protection. AN IMPRACTICAL IDEAL "Universal Free Trade is an ideal which may be good, but it is not within the region of practical politics. There is far more chance of approaching the ideal by helping to approximate the fiscal system of Britain to that of every other country. It will then be impossible to drive bargains and get fairer trade than ever. before. It is not a fact that those | ' proposals would add to the discord of the world. In the long run, assimilating British practice with that of the rest of the world would make for peace, as all ,the nations would speak with equality." Concluding, Mr. Baldwin invited his audience to "look to the sea, whence cometh your help. The ocean has always been the high road of English migrations, and now the Dominions and the i Mother Country are united to bring their wciirht and strength to fight unemployment.''