King Country Chronicle. Tuesday, November 5, 1929. EMPIRE TRADE.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXIII, Issue 3075, 5 November 1929, Page 4

King Country Chronicle. Tuesday, November 5, 1929. EMPIRE TRADE.

.Last week it was announced that Lord Beaverbrook was organising- a campaign for the fostering of Empire Free Trade. While this may be an ideal well worthy of support throughout the British Empire, the Dominions have worked so long on a protective Customs tariff that the scheme involves many great difficulties. Free Trade means that Great Britain will be called upon to admit foodstuffs and raw materials from the Dominions free of all Customs duties, while a duty will be placed on all such commodities from foreign countries. For this the Dominions will be asked to allow free entry of all British goods. While this appears at first sight a very simple and desirable objective, there are many problems facing such a proposition. Free Trade is an obsession with the majority of the people of Great Britain, who consider that the country's commercial greatness was built on the basis of the free entry of goods from other countries, while they also believe that to tax foreign goods, especially foodstuffs, would mean an increase in the cost of living. While this may have been a sound agreement half a century ago, conditions have changed in a marked degree since then. The Dominions have developed enormously of late years and are now in a position to supply all the raw materials and foodstuffs that the Mother Country requires. In addition, the Dominions now require a greater quantity of British manufactured goods, and as they develop still further that demand will increase. The Dominions are now Britain's best costumers. Other countries have raised their tariff walls, and this has been a serious blow to British manufacturers. With the Dominions as Britain's best customers, the development of these units of Empire is of vital importance to Britain and her commercial interests. There will also be strong opposition in the Dominions to have the tariff lifted on British goods. Some time ago the New Zealand Manufacturers' Federation declared that the flow of exports must be checked by a substantial tariff, but this suggestion, if put into operation, is going to penalise other sections of the community. About half the State revenue of this country is derived from the Customs tariff, and this means a direct tax on the cost of living. The farming community suffers more than any other by high Customs tariffs, and as this concerns the most important industry of the Dominion, to increase the tariff for the sake of the manufacturers would be a very unwise step .When New Zealand imposed a tariff on wheat imported from Australia, that country promptly retaliated by raising the tariff on dairy produce and potatoes, so on the whole it had a bad effect on the overseas trade of the Dominion. While Empire Free Trade has much to commend it from the point of view of the Dominions, to wholly lift the Customs duties on English goods would be unfair. The present secondary industries were built up on the prevailing fiscal tariff, and it would be far from just to lift this protection in one swoop. Trade within the Empire is an ideal that may take years and even a generation to bring about, but there are many difficulties in the way. From the point of view of Great Britain these difficulties are not insurmountable once the prejudice against protection has been broken down. The problems to be encountered in the Dominions are more numerous. The position to-day, however, is that it is a general world policy for countries to become more self-con-tained by increasing their fiscal duties, an.d it is only a matter of time before Great Britain will have to revise her present Free Trade policy. The question is whether that revision will mean co-operation with the Dominion in a general expansion of trade within the Empire or trade barriers between each unit.