EMPIRE PREFERENCE

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 45, 21 August 1924, Page 14

EMPIRE PREFERENCE

RESOLUTIONS REJECTED

THE COMMONS DEBATE

. MR, BALDWIN'S GRAVE WARNING. (NtOU OUR OWJ( CORRESPONDENT.) LONDON, 19th June. After following the debate on Imperial Preference, which has lasted. during the past two days, one is inspired with a feeling of hope for the future of the Em-, pire. Hope arises from the fact that the' question of preference shows signs of emerging from, the region of party .politics. It is true that the Imperial Conference resolutions wore defeated, by majorities ranging from 6 to 20, but had Mr. Ramsay Mac Donald not found it necessary to play for the future of hia pariy there would 'have been no majorities. As it was the Prime Minister was exceedingly uneasy, and still more unhappy was Mi. J. H, Thomas (Colonial Secretary). Party expedients seem to have prompted them to vote against the preferences. In this they were more feeble than Air. Lloyd George, who, though he absented himself from the debate, yot paired in favour of those items of preference which did not mean any increase of taxation.

There has seldom been a greater amount .of heart-searching. Never had the members of the Labour Party constrained to turn their attention" bo much to the interests of the Dominions. Although they havo failed to win'a moral victory they have had a lesson in thinking Imperially. .It is understood that Dr. Haden Guest has been made chairman of the Labour Committee on Imperial Policy, and he it was who tried tolead his fellow-Labour .members in the direction of preference. He was riot satlsfiedswith' the purely negative • attitude of the Front Bench, he said. Freetrade is not going to solve any problems at all by itself. He begged his colleagues not to be led astray by the - Freetrade banner, and exhorted them at least to yoto for the first four resolutions, adding : "I should very much like this coun.try to persuade our brothers in the Commonwealth to enter into closer association with us in the development and exploitation of our enormous resources, with the deliberate object of raising the standard of life of the people of this' country." ] And, again: "We must have preference as part of. a very much bigger scheme of Imperial organisation, and if we couplewith that some kind of guarantee to improve the standard of life of the working people of this country I think all parties together will make a very long step in advance." . . SOME PEETINENT FACTS. . Dr. Guest, was not singular in these opinions. .Mr. Johnston, who hails from Clackmannan, pointed , out to his party that "wo1 have already in our Dominions four Labour Governments but of six," and that the Imperial idea was not a perquisite of the Tory Party, and he proceeded to enumerate facts extremely pertinent to a "Labour" Governmnt. "Australia," ho said, "requires a 48 hours' week, and in many of her industries a 44-hours' week. In Australia the minimum wage in the skilled 'industries Is £4 Is 6d. Australia happens to produce dried fruits, and she can raise about 10 per cent, of what wo consume. In this respect her only other competitor is Greece. I am told that the conditionsunder which the people employed by Greece in these plantations for the production ol fruit is not a 48 hours or 68 hours' week; but, as a matter of fact, they work all the hours that God sends and a few more, and what their wages are nobody knows, and yet we import our currants from Greece."

_ Mr. Maxton, of Glasgow fame, held similar opinions : *"I cannot see how we are going to help. the British working man by saying to him that any goods that are produced anywhere, under any conditions whatever, in sweated den 3or in swindlers' back shops, should be allowed to come into this country without stop or barrier, irrespective of the effect that they, may have on the lives of our people."

In due course we shall hear from the Dominions what they think of the result of the vote. They will have had no opportunity of studying the nice points of explanation put forward by Mr. Mac Donald and other members. If the Dominions speak with no uncertain' voice regarding what they will undoubtedly consider sheer stupidity on the part of Great Britain, it will be all to the good. One feels that if the debate were held again in three months' time, and divisions were taken, the verdict of the Commons would bo reversed. ; JTBEE. TRADE EMPIRE. On the whole, the debate followed party lines with a good deal of repetition of familiar arguments. The most striking contribution was made by Mr Baldwin, who spoke seriously of the effect there might be on the Dominions should the resolutions agreed to at the Imperial Conference fail to become effective. He had no fear that the Dominions, in such a case, would reply in a spirit of pique, but ho visualised the possibility that in time political ties might weaken, and the Dominions might be tempted to turn to other countries which would offer them advantages we declined to concede.. Recognising that it was impossible to get the House to agree to all the ten resolutions, Mr. Baldwin put in a special plea for the first four, which give a preference out of existing taxes. These, he pointed out, involved no invasion of Ereetrade principles, and their adoption would keep the whole question alive and not slam the door in the face of the Dominions. Markets for British goods and space for British population were what we required, and he asked the Government whether they had thought of getting together a body of c •onomic experts not identified with par y, to . study scientifically the whole question of Empire development, and ■ the economic systems suited to its various parts. As an ideal he pictured an Empire with Freetrade between its component parts and a tariff for revenue purposes only the whole ring. AN ALTERNATIVE. ■ Mr. Baldwin had been struct by the great discrepancy between the prices received by the producers and those paid by the consumers. He wanted the facts brought out, and he had made the declaration that if he wore returned to power one of his first acts would be an investigation by Royal Commission into these mutters. *.;if for the moment the country will not take a certain course of action, we must try to find others.' Is it not possible to enter into some arrangement with the Dominions by which the enormous amount of foodstuffs we require may be obtained solely from them, brought into this country at cost price, and distributed with the least possible margin—(cries of "Oh!" and cheers)— and to obtain in exchange the free entry of our manufactured goods into these Dominions, where such goods did not. compete with their own? Something of that kind, he believed, might last, for the best part of a generation, if it were arranged. Tub whole situation would |hejj taxs i§ b§ reviewed if .the

populations of the Dominions had sufficiently increased, and if they desired to become, more than they were now, manufacturing nations, if the whole of the resolutions were defeated, the Government would gravely imperil the future of the Empire. (Cries of ."No ". and cheers.) Tho Dominions could bolieve nothing else than that th» House of Commons had deliberately come to the conclusion that it would have nothing to do with preference. The. Dominions would reluctantly seek elsewhere for for what this country has refused them. There was a vast trado between the Dominions and this country, but thero was no reason why that should always be the case, and the diversion of any of that volume of trade would tell not only on tho industries of this country but on our shipping too. Even the passage of only the first four resolutions would keep tho whole question alive and make the Dominions realiso that the House, without distinction of party, was willing so far as it could to mako arrangements. MR. ASQUITH'S SCORN. Mr. Asquith crossed the floor of the House to the accompaniment of Liberal cheers, and took his stand at the Opposition side of the table. He delved into tho dead controversies of the pasty and brought forward no new constructive suggestion. Glancing down on Mr. Baldwin, he claimed that he had underestimated (he would not say perverted) tho verdict given by the country. Mr. Baldwin did not think that it included the condemnation of these resolutions. It certainly did. Mr. Asquith was inclined to be scornful about the character of the resolutions. They reminded him of the itinerant vendor of vegetables in Bagdad, who perambulated the streets and cried: "In the name of the Prophet, figs !" The resolutions, in fact, were an attenuated, emasculated, anaemic, and even apocryphal version of the full-blooded gospel of Imperial preference. In other words, they were mere leather and prunella. The Empire, he said, could_ not produce all the food and raw material wo needed. He welcomed the suggestion of the. late Government that there should be a permanent Imperial Economic Committee. I SIN WITH A SMILING FACE. \

Mr. Mac Donald said that.the Opposition knew very well that the resolutions did not amount to very much. ' They had pruned and pared them to make thorn respectable, and had produced four innocent-looking resolutions upon which to challenge the. Government in the hope that Ministerialists would fall into the snare laid for their .feet.. -These four resolutions; however, must -be taken with all the others. .They were merely the . preliminary declaration to the introduction of a full programme of Imperial preference. It was not a. case of voting on the four resolutions according to-their verbal meaning, but according to the spirit of those who drafted the resolutions. This was not the first time that sin had come into the world with a smiling face. Preference to Australia meant' that the Australian consumer, without abandoning his protective ideas, wiiVouf in any way departing from his conception of national economy, said: " Because you 'are the Mother Country, because there is some relationship between us which does not exist between ourselves and any other country, because you give us this, outside that which is declared in commercial treaties, we will express our gratitude to, and friendship with, you in a porculiar arrangement by which we keep up our tariff walls against, you, qnite ettectiveiy. for our own purpose, but lower them slightly in your favour'in relation to foreign exporters who are outside the Commonwealth." That was Imperial preference from the Australian and Canadian point of view-.but what was this thing, called by the'same name, which the Unionist members wished to impose upon the country? It was not .a thing which could be recognised as within the Government's views of sound national economy. In effect, the Government would have to 'recreate not only our relations with the self-governing Dominions but to- produce - a new fiscal policy with regard to foreign countries. Mr. bhowden, who wound up the debate for the Government, maintained that a policy of preference would inevitably tie the hands of any future Chancellor of the Exchequer in the remission of taxation. In good electioneering style he dangled the hope of the total abolition of food taxes before the country and declared that this hope would have to be abandoned if the preference resolutions were adopted.

EMERGING FROM THE P4UTY ' STATE.

Mr. Austen Chamberlain, who concluded the debate for the Opposition, declared that he was a Protectionist and preferential. ■He stood, he said, as one who frankly, recognised that, having appealed to the country on a general tariff, and failed to get a verdict,' that tariff could only become a practical, issue when it became the policy of no single party, but of other parties who were driven by the force of events. The Chancellor of the Exchequer,' he said, was a Socialist grafted on to the narrowest type of Mid-Victorian pedant. He belonged to that school which endangered our Empire in the middle of the last century by its indifference to colonial aspirations. This controversy was emerging from the party stage. It was true that the other members did not go the whole way with them. There' was a cry of " Lloyd George," which led Mr. Chamberlain to pay his tribute to the courage and consistency of the member for Carnarvon. If every Dominion to-morrow presented the Government with an ultimatum that every preference would be taken off if no response were made, would the Government dare to take the consequences of lhafc refusal? Underlying the economic aigument there was something greater AY ere material things with the Dominions of no consequence? If that side were _ neglected,. what about the moral side? ■ The first resolution, freeing from import duty_ fags, raisins, plums, and currants of limpire origin, was defeated by 278 votes to 272, majority 6. The second resolution, reducing- the duty on Empiregrown tobacco, was rejected by 284 votes to 271, majority 13, The third resolution, reducing the duty on Empire wines was repected by 285 -sotes to 268 majority 17. The fourth resolution, stabilising the existing preference on Empire grown sugar for a period of ten years was defeated by 283 votes to 263, majority 20. . The remaining resolutions were not moved by v Mr. Baldwin, in accordance with an. agreement with the House. THE BALD FACT. - It is something, says " The Times " that so much energy should have been displayed in support of the resolutions, but it is the bald fact that they were defeated which unfortunately will loom largest across the seas. . " . j "The peoples of the Dominions, it is to be feared, will not trouble their heads about distinctions, nor are they likely to attach to the plans for their advantage of which Mr. Thomas and Mr. MacDonald have spoken on the moral or the material value which these projects may deserve. aho one thing which they will see is that the Labour Government or the Liberals who belong to the school of felr. Asquitb, have offered a det-rm-

ined opposition to preference in any and every form. From that broad conclusion they may but too probably draw inferences as to the feelings of these great parties towards them," which more than words will be needed to obliterate."

A great deal more will be heard of iho result of the debate. Those who know the Dominions may feel that a defeat by a narrow majority will be of greater value even than- a victory by a.narrow majority. The protests will b e more vehement, the publicity will bo the greater, and in the end the education of the people of this country in regard to Empire matters will go forward more rapidly."