TARIFF REVIEW OTTAWA

Evening Post, Volume CXIV, Issue 97, 21 October 1932, Page 6

TARIFF REVIEW OTTAWA

(To the Editor.) Sir,—With reference to the leader which appeared in "The Post" of the 17th instant, it k stated that "it must not be assumed that her (Britain's) acceptance of a reduction of o per cent, on four itenSs is to be treated as any kind of a standard either in number or in scale for the general work of tariff revision to which wu are committed by the agreement." In reply thereto we desire to quote the two following paragraphs:— (1) From, the London "Daily Mail": "The Ottawa Conference could not give us Empire Free Trade for many practical reasons. The Dominion in recent years have almost without exception created important secondary industries. If their duties on our goods were swept away those industries would be imperilled and the solvency and stability of the Dominions concerned would be shaken. There is certainly no one in Great Britain who wants to obtain advantage for British industry at the price of. Dominion loss. It should never be forgotten that the Dominions have immense potentialities, so- that the value of their preference will grow. When the present world-wide economic depression lifts they should have before them an age of rapid expansion." (2) From the monthly journal of the National Union of Manufacturers (London), September issue, in its report on the Otta\ra Conference: "We ' are freed from the economic deadweight which the old metaphor 'Mother Country' has hitherto kept on our shoulders. . The present generation of Englishmen ai'e in no sense the fathers or mothers of -the people of the Dominions. The Dominions have a feeling for this country and for our common traditions, and are fellowsubjects of the Crown; but naturally they have no more' sentiment toward us than we have toward them; we are inheritors of common traditions and of a certain amount of common blood, but in all other respects we are friendly competitors and colleagues." In making your reference ."the generosity with which we (New Zealand) have been treated should be an argument for responding in the same spirit" is it not reasonable to suggest that the added .advantages attaching to the immediate removal from British goods of the 9-40ths surtax is liable to be interpreted by British statesmen and public as a generous response to favours extended to Dominion products ?—We are, etc.,