Evening Post. FRIDAY, JUNE 21, 1929. DOUBLED DUTIES

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 143, 21 June 1929, Page 8

Evening Post. FRIDAY, JUNE 21, 1929. DOUBLED DUTIES

An attempt made in the United States Senate to separate agricultural items from general items in dealing with tariff revision—ah attempt defeated by one vote —seems to indicate that the Canadian threats of reprisals are at least being listened to in the United States. For it is Canada that is particularly hit by the agricultural section of the new tariff; and while on the one side the United States farmer ;is one of the most militant factors for upward rates, there are indications that the Canadian farmer will be not le^s keen in urging his Government to retaliation. In this quarter of the world admiration might be felt for the cbunter-battery work of the Canadian farm interests were it not that their guns are liable to be turned as much on New Zealand and Australian dairy produce now imported into Canada as on the country that has just doubled the duties on their milk and cream. When the Canadian dairy farmers suddenly found the United States duties raised, on fresh milk, from 2\ cents to 5 cents a gallon, and, on cream, from 20 to 48 cents a gallon, New Zealand naturally sympathised with them; but in so far as our sympathies are coloured by the calculation that, the more Canadian milk and cream go to U.S.A., the better will be the Canadian mar-ket-for our butter and the London market for our cheese, our good wishes to the Canadians in their fight against United States tariffism is hardly likely to appease the Canadian Conservative leader, Mr. Bennett, who is conducting a political crusade against'the treaties that encourage New Zealand and Australian dairy produce, and who is apparently prepared, to pay any price for the rural vote. Mr. Bennett does not say, in the usual tariffite way, that New Zealand and Australian dairy produce is produced by sweated labour, so he indicts it on another count—that ''cows can pasture all the year round." The offence, therefore, is not under-paid labour but over-worked grass. Because of certain climatic differences, and because the United State's shuts out Canadian milk and cream, Mr. Bennett would exclude from Canada the butter and cheese produced in this part of the world. That is to 'say, his theory of reprisals does not merely extend to the country that penalises his raw milk, but to other countries that have done nothing worse than send him milk products. All of which shows that if the Conservative leader is securing much support, his campaign will embarrass the Canadian Government in carrying out its reported plan to meet United States higher protection with "a material increase in British preference, if not the inauguration of complete Free Trade on the bulk of British goods." "Action against Australian and ,New Zealand.trade on the lines proposed by Mr? Bennett would be a queer first step towards intra-Imperial preference. Even if nothing worse results in the dairy produce trade than the exclusion of Canadian milk and cream from the United States, that diversion in 1 itself must automatically increase dairy competition /in the Canadian and London markets. But if Canadian Customs action repealing or weakening die Australian and New Zealand treaties is superadded, this part of the Empire will catch the tempest both ways. And Mr. Bennett will not mind that, if he can stop the alleged march of Canadian dairy cows across the border. ' '- J_Wbile the Conservative agrarianfiscal policy may be embawassing, the.general issue is of course far wider than the agricultural section of the United States tariff, and it is not a mere affair between United States and Canada,- with "certain consequential effects «on the primary exports of New Zealand and Australia. Wide trading 'of the United Kingdom as well as of Canada are at issue in the United States Senate, and South America and "Europe listen to the debates with equal.interest Trcsident Hoover's goodwill tour of South America'/ is believed to have created a good atmosphere, but atmosphere cannot, be, preserved" save by appropriate action.'-Following goodwill and Monroeism, a'further upward, step in the United, States "plan of economic'self-sufficiency comes as a kind of anti-climax;, and it is stated on good authority, that Argentina will judge the United States .not on the President's gestures But on the actions of iJie President and Congress, the first and foremost of which actions will be the new tariff. There is no question of a naval armaments race between Latin America and the United States, but international co-operation and amity depend as much on the incidence of tariffs as on the distribution of guns, and the United States protectionists may. find in the finish their strongest, opponents not in Europe but in the Americas. Should they carry the tariff in a form that will drive Canada into an intraImperial preference movement, a new problem will arise for the British Labour Party. Mr. Snowden has declared war on the safeguarding duties. If the Canadian movement gets into full swing, he may be asked to go a good deal farther than safeguarding has yet contemplated.