TARIFF DANGERS

Evening Star, Issue 19856, 3 May 1928, Page 15

TARIFF DANGERS

SIR GEO. ELLIOT'S WARNING DEAL WITH THE EMPIRE WORKSHOP ISreciAL to thb * Star.’] AUCKLAND, May 2. “ Speaking broadly, excessive tariffs are dangerous and, .selfish,” said Sir George Elliot, chairman of tho Bank of New Zealand, last evening, when, following an address to the Workers’ Educational Association on the Economic Conference in Geneva last year, ho was asked his opinion on New Zealand’s tariff policy. ‘‘New Zealand should never forgot that Great Britain takes 85 per cent, of her exports, and that the dominion receives only 50 per cent, of her imports from the Mother Country,” he said. “The industries of the Old Country have never been in a worse state than they arc to-day, and all sorts of schemes are being considered in an endeavour to remedy the position. If Great Britain decided to put a tariff upon Foodstuffs it would be a sorry day for New Zealand and Australia. It is all very well for New Zealand to call herself the dairy farm of the Empire, but she must not forget that there is a workshop 13,000 miles away, and unless she takes the products of that workshop there will not be much custom for the dairy. “The man who says there is no sentiment in business is foolish/’ concluded Sir George Elliot. “Business is full of sentiment, no. matter what those outside the commercial world—the doctor, the minister, and tho professional man—may say to the contrary.”