WELLINGTON CHAMBER OF COMMERCE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXIII, Issue 13716, 5 April 1905, Page 9

WELLINGTON CHAMBER OF COMMERCE.

ADDRESS BY THE ACTINGPRESIDENT. [Per Press Association'.] WELLINGTON, April 4. In an address at tho annual meeting of the Chamber of Commerce this afternoon, the acting-president, Mr M. Shirtcliffe, advocated an extension of real preference to British goods by concessions to be made up by additional imposts on foreign goods. Ho attributed the falling-off in the exports of loreign meat, tallow and sheepskins to the heavy exportation drain of tho past few years, and predicted a further decrease in the colony’s flocks. Tho colony’s excess of exports over imports was only £1,400,000 in 1804, and as tho annual charge against tho colony for interest on private and public indemnities was, roughly, £3,000,000, flic margin of export in excess was too narrow, and the temporary falling-off in imports would not be a matter for regret. Ho strongly attacked the policy of State interference with private enterprise, and said there was ground for alarm in the decided socialistic tendency in legislation, and that it behoved tho commercial community and the Chambers throughout the colony to resist further interference by the State.