ANGLO-JAPANESE TRADE.

Evening Star, Issue 21715, 9 May 1934, Page 8

ANGLO-JAPANESE TRADE.

Mr Walter Runcxman, President of the Board of Trade, is in the thick of as heavy a session’s programme as lias over confronted a Minister holding that portfolio. Among matters demanding his attention are the shipping subsidy, reorganisation of the coal industry and of the temporarily protected iron and steel industry, and trade treaties with France, Russia, and the Baltic States. But perhaps the most delicate of all his tasks is that of preventing the depression in Lancashire from becoming a debacle without provoking Japan to one early form of which might be an attempt to close the door in China to all trade except her own. Hardly had 1934 opened than the Association of the British Chambers of Commerce published a considered statement on British trade policy and forwarded a copy to the Government. The summary of more than one commercial paper in England was that “ the association is getting tired of the virtues of patience and forbearance in Government policy and hints at other arguments.” That is to say that the chambers of commerce, which represent the exporting interests in Britain, desire trade treaties which will expedite their free exports in' return for free imports. Mr Forbes and Mr Coates have sounded Westminster on that subject, and thereby have disclosed the fact that England is acutely divided on the point. The ‘ Daily Herald,’ now developing into more than the organ of obstructive Labour, states that “an acute battle is developing between British industrial and- agricultural interests. City opinion is strongly opposed to interference in trade with the dominions.” Evidently it is. Mr Walter Elliot has had Ids say as Minister of Agriculture, and, as far as the dominions are concerned, he has still to win his way to the position allocated to him in advance by the agrarian interests—vix., the Prime Ministership. That position is not likely to bo his, because England’s position is that there must be a compromise between her and the rest of the world, not exefuding her own dominions. But before that happens Britain and her dominions must settle their own domestic differences, which are as between primary and secondary production briefly between farming and manufacturing. One cannot help surmising that the very astute little Japanese arc most interested observers of this domestic difference, and are alert to slip in the wedge. Cheap Japanese articles arc being vended in every major town in the British Empire. ft is probably beyond the intellect of the average housewife to inquire into the origin of the goods. Price is everything to her, and the argument of the breadwinner as to' the need of the Empire to be loyal to itself falls for the most part on deaf cars.