Evening Post FRIDAY, JANUARY 31, 1930. IMPERIAL TRADE AND TARIFFS

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 26, 31 January 1930, Page 8

Evening Post FRIDAY, JANUARY 31, 1930. IMPERIAL TRADE AND TARIFFS

We were told yesterday that in the House of Commons the Prime Minister informed Mr. Dixey, the Conservative member for Penrith, that he was not prepared to consider the appointment of a Committee to inquire into tariffs and Imperial trade. To the question of another Conservative member, "Has the Government no Imperial trade policy?" Mr. MacDonald made no reply. A third Conservative, Mr. J. R. Remer, then proceeded to discuss the matter in a speech that would have been less hopelessly out of date thirty years ago than it is to-day. There was, said Mr. Reiner, a considerable opinion in Australia in favour of the scheme. Sou£h Africa and Now Zealand would also benefit. Such loose assertions sound more like the feeble efforts of a schoolboy than an argument addressed by an adult to adults. There may be a "considerable opinion" in Australia in favour of Empire Free Trade, just as there is a considerable opinion in the United Kingdom against vaccination. But, in either case, what is the weight of the favourable opinion when compared with that of the hostile opinion? and is tho opinion growing or declining? So far at any rate as Australia's interest in Empire Free Trade is concerned, it cannot, indeed, be said to be either growing or declining; it is simply dead, without the slightest chance of a revival; At the last General Election both the Bruce Government and its opponents did something much worse for the scheme than attacking it; they completely ignored it. And high, as were Australia's tariff walls against the manufactures of Britain before the election, the Labour Government which has since come into office has raised them higher still. In these circumstances the statement that there is a considerable opinion in Australia in favour of the scheme is sheer- moonshine. The statement that "South Africa and New Zealand would also benefit" is almost equally beside the mark. That deplorable treaty which pledges South Africa, to give Germany "most-favoured nation" treatment under her tariff would apparently prevent her from joining an Empire Union, even if the same anti-British bias which inspired the treaty did not make her prefer to keep out of it. In British and Imperial sentiment New Zealand is at the opposite pole from South Africa, but neither in 1903, when the principle of Imperial preference was first introduced into our tariff, nor at any time since has the sacrifice of any of our secondary industries on the altar of Imperialism been carried out or even contemplated. If even under the stimulus of Mr. Joseph Chamberlain's great campaign the most British of the Dominions could carry the principle of preference no further "than the raising- of its tariff against the foreigner, how absurd it is to suppose that at this time of day South Africa, Canada, and Australia are going to pay the slightest heed to the dream of a Free Trade Empire ! But Mr. Remer gets even better as he goes along: It could be achieved instantly by the formation of a British Empire Fiscal Union, placing a tariff wall on foreign goods. Tho scheino had proved sound economically wherever it had been tried. . . . It might bo said that it was proposed to tax food, but it could only be foreign and raw material. (Labour laughter.) Thoro could not be any increase in prices, becauso the Empire could supply all the food apart from that from Britain, which would tend to increase. The laughter from the Labour benches was perhaps the best answer to this very simple-minded crusader. A proposal which would revolutionise the tariffs of all the self-govern-ing units of the Empire, and for that reason is not taken seriously by any of them, is to be carried "instantly" by the mere formation of a British Empire Fiscal Union. And the Brit' ish consumer, who is traditionally afraid of a food tax, is gravely assured that it will only affect foreign food. The food affected will be foreign in the sense of foreign grown, but it is British by the time it is eaten, and tho consumer, will naturally require some more solid assurance than the bare statement that the food is "only foreign," and that the Empire can make up the shortage without any increase of prices. Lord Beaverbrook's ■ letter to the "Morning Post" which was summarised in a cable message on Tuesday is distinguished by a more practical judgment than has been displayed by some of his fellow-crusaders and in some of his own previous utterances. A full and complete system of Free Trade throughout the Empire was the ideal which he proclaimed in his original proposal in July, and in the pamphlet which he published three months lalcr he still spoke of the British tax on foreign wheat and meat as conditional upon the Dominions' allowing "the free

entry of British goods into their territories." But in another part of the same publication he wisely modified this demand, and he makes a still closer approach to the practicable in the plan which he has submitted to the "Morning Post." "The first step towards Empire Free Trade" has no immediate or direct application to the Dominions, which from Mr. Joseph Chamberlain's time onwards have usually supplied the chief crux of the controversy next to the British taxation of food imports. Our first object, said Mr. Chamberlain at the Imperial Conference of 1902, is Free Trade within the Empire. That appears to be still Lord Beaverbrook's ideal, but his first object is now narrowed to something very much simpler. Instead of wrecking his scheme at the outset on, the unshakeable adherence of all the oversea democracies to Protection he proposes to make a start with those parts of the Empire which are still under Britain's direct control. Excluding India, 'which controls her own tariff, and Egypt, which is really no part of the Empire, he says that the other Dependencies and Crown Colonies constitute "a huge Empire almost as large as the United Stales in resources," and to this "Colonial Empire" he proposes that his project should be in the first instance applied. Wo propose, lie says, that Britain and these lands be formed into a I>eo Trade Empire as soon as may bo. Wo then stand on the same footing with our Colonial Empire as do France and America, with the Colonial Empire's markets open to us and barred to other nations. By thus giving the Crown Colonies and Dependencies an assured market for their raw materials, and stabilising tho widest possible area of co-operation, wo increase their demand for manufactures. At the same time an option is to be reserved for the Dominions to "enter this fruitful union unconditionally or with such limitations as they desire." It may be assumed that the "dyed in the wool" Free Traders will oppose even this limited proposal, but they will obviously not find it so easy a mark as the complete scheme launched by Lord Beaverbrook six months ago. Too late for discussion in . this article comes the full report of the debate on Mr. Rcmer's motion, and we must content ourselves with pointing out that the abortive result was significant. The fact that after speeches from such doughty advocates of Free Trade as Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Snowden the motion was rather "talked out than adjourned," and that "practically the whole House welcomed the evidence of a division," shows that Lord Beaverbrook and his friends have at any rate succeeded in providing all parties with an embarrassing issue.