EMPIRE FREE TRADE

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 32, 7 February 1930, Page 8

EMPIRE FREE TRADE

BANNER IN THE NORTH

BEAVERBROOK CAMPAIGN

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, 23rd December.

Lord Bcaverbrook and his supporters have raised the banner of the Empire Crusade in the industrial north. At a great demonstration in Newcastle City Hull, Lord Beavcrlirook being in the chair, the Hon. C. A. M' Curdy, one oil the leading figures in Liberalism, expounded the policy of Empire Free Trad>>. "We wish to bring the people of Great Britain and the subjects oil the Empiro together into one mighty nation," said Lord Beaverbrook, "pledged to peace and bountifully endowed with all the resources that make for prosperity; into a splendid enterprise— The Economic Empire." Lord Beaverbrook said he had arrived to talk about a new political faith. Not Free Trade, not Tariff Reform, not Protection, and not Imperial Preference. It was their object to develop the industries and resources of all parts of the British Empire to the fullest possible extent, and for that purpose to make of the Empire a simple economic unit. They wished to erect such tariff barriers between the Empire and all foreign countries as might be found necessary to realise these ideals, removing so far as possible all obstacles to trade between its component parts. They hoped to make the resources of the British Empire, both financial and material, more valuable to producers, distributors, and consumers in every part of it. Why did they want Empire trade? Because they believed that the condition of England was not satisfactory, and they were able to quote figures. The total exports of Great Britain in 1924 amounted to £940,000,000. By 1928 these exports had fallen to £843,000,----000. "If you examine/the figures you will be confirmed in the belief wo hold that the condition of England is unsatisfactory. What is the reason for the- decline? We allege that it is due to an obsolete system of economics, due to a one-sided system of > Free trade. Preo Trade has been built up upon certain broad principles. Free Traders desired to obtain the cheapest possible production of manufactured goods. To get that they relied upon a low standard of wages, and that carried with it cheap food for the people. This priii- j eiplc is attacked from countries which have a cheaper level of production, a ] lower level' of wages, and cheaper food than Great Britain." . . I MR. M'CURDY'S SPEECH.', "By Empire Free Trade," said Mr. M'Curdy, "we do not mean anything of a theoretic character. We mean a policy which has been tried and found practical; a fiscal system which has been tried out and is now giving America the largest effective free trade area, the most profitable markets, and the most prosperous workers which the world has ever known. If we look back over the 25 years which have rolled by since the Tariff Beforra campaign was launched we find that surprising things have happened, All that Mr. Chamberlain foresaw has been justified by events. He predicted only too accurately the increasing difficulties with which we should be faced in markets outside the Empire, the growing importance of markets inside the Empire, the peril of declining trade, of dwindling prosperity, and of actual unemployment to which we were exposed. "Ho was right. And since he spoke, events have moved with catastrophic rapidity in the directions which wo predicted. In 1903 we honestly thought that England still led the world as a manufacturing nation; that America Js experiments in high Protection, while injurious to ns, would prove still more injurious to herself. What aro the facts? In 1903 America was hardly a serious competitor with the United Kingdom in the export of manufactured goods. We exported 262 million pounds' worth of manufactured goods every year, as compared with 78 million pounds' worth exported by the United States. At the outbreak of the war our exports amounted to 411 millions, I the United States 160 millions. Last year the respective figures were 579 millions for Great Britain, 265 millions for the United States. | "If to-day we measure the rewards of labour in this country with the wages i paid in the United States, not in dol-! lars or pounds, but in the commodities j which at present prices money will buy, real wages are 80 per cent, higher in the States than they are in this coun-1 try. The price of the loaf may be higher in America than with ns, but an hour's work will buy nearly twice as many loaves in America as an hour's work here. EMPIRE'S UNTAPPED EESOUBCES. "The fundamental belief which inspires this Empiro Crusade is that wo possess in the far-flung territories of the British Empire all that is necessary to provide an abundant prosperity for all the peoples under our flag. In that Empire we possess possibilities of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. Much of that wealth is at present unknown, unexplored, but the known wealth alone far exceeds that of the North American continent.

"To start with, wo produce nearly three-fourths of the world's gold all the nickel, part of the tin, practically all tho jute, more than half tho rubber, and nearly half the wool of the world. We havD wheat and pasture lands. And, above all that we produce to-day, there are millions of acres waiting to yield up their riches, when we make up our minds to develop them. We believe that what other people can do, we can do, if given the chance. We ,must stop bothering about the lower wages and sweated conditions of our least efficient and least formidable competitors.

"There is something -wrong in a policy which is leaving us hopelessly outstripped in. the competition with the other great English-speaking people across the Atlantic, and this Empire Free Trade is not in the interests of any party or in hostility to any party. We do not expect as a result of a few months' propaganda/ to convert the whole of the British Empire to our views. No great cause has ever achieved a triumph of that kind. We know there are difficulties to surmount, interests to be conciliated. But we do hope to secure one thing at once, and that of vast importance—to check the building of new barriers. Wo can start here and there on the pulling down of old ones. We do not dream of asking the great self-governing Dominions to make up their minds in a few weeks or months on a question of such importance. There must be conferences and discussions. We must put the facts on j the table, and talk together as friends with a common interest, with a common prosperity. "But while the Dominions are considering the question as it effects themselves, wo have in the great colonial dependencies of the Empire undeveloped markets which, in themselves, would be sufficient to restore prosperity to British industry and provide work for our million and a quarter unemployed." Sir George Hunter, the great shipbuilder, in whose yards the Mauretania was constructed, said: "Nothing has been done by our politicians to solve the unemployment question. Therefore, I hail Lord Beaverbrook's proposals, because, at any rate, they are a publicspirited and patriotic attempt to solve the problem, and at any rate Lord Beavcrbrook is trying (o do something."