Manawatu Evening Standard. THURSDAY, JANUARY 31, 1924. WHERE FREE TRADE IS FOLLY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIV, Issue 930, 31 January 1924, Page 4

Manawatu Evening Standard. THURSDAY, JANUARY 31, 1924. WHERE FREE TRADE IS FOLLY.

Speaking at the civic reception tendered to him in Wellington on Monday afternoon, Mr Massey referred to the one-sided conditions operating under the so-called free trade system in England, and, to illustrate his point, put a suppositious case. “Suppose,” he said, “we in New Zealand allowed goods of every description to come here from Australia free of duty, and Australia wanted us to continue doing so, but insisted upon placing upon all goods received from us a 25 per cent, duty. Would that be fair? Could you call that free trade? Of course not; but that is the sort of thing that goes by the name of free trade in England.” Foreign countries are dumping their manufactured goods into England and underselling the British manufacturer and so depriving him of his own market. When razors made in Germany—“beautiful razors,” as described by Mr Massey—can be sold in England for one shilling, or magnificent field glasses, also made in Germany, can be sold for 255, /what possible chance can the British' manufacturer have of holding his own in his home markets? Not only Germany, but France, Holland, Belgium, Italyarid other countries (all more prosperous than England from the trade standpoint, because their workers are fully occupied and there is no unemployment) are dumping their manufactured goods into Britain. But, if Britain wants to send her manufactured goods into any one of those countries, she finds barriers raised against her in the shape of prohibitive tariffs, while the depreciated currencies of those countries- also have their effect in still further handicapping the Britisher, who clings to his free trade fetish, much in the same way as a limpet clings to a rock. A rather startling item in the cables the other day intimated that while there was a very grave depression in British shipping the German mercantile marine was booming. “The one nation whose mercantile marine has flourished is (we are told) Germany, whose shipowners were assisted by their Government to replace steamers lost during the war, and who are rapidly regaining the place they previously held. Freights are paid in sterling, dollars, and other fairly stable currencies, and home expenses are paid in marks.” IN STRIKING CONTRAST. The Sydney Morning Herald recently published an interview with a leading Australian merchant who had newlyreturned to Sydney after a trip to Great Britain and the Continent. That gentleman’s observations had led him to the conclusion that “the Continental countries are enjoying a period of great prosperity. In France, Holland, Switzerland, Italy and Belgium (he said) there appeared to be no unemployment, and everyone was busy. In contradistinction to this happy state oi affairs England was in an unfortunate position, and it was estimated there were more like 2,000,000 unemployed than the 1,400,000 given as the official number.” The fact that foreigners were at work producing articles, the manufacture or production of which would have kept the greater portion of the men and women comprised in that army fully employed does not appear to have been realised by the British public generally, nor were they able to see that the unrestricted sale of these foreign productions at prices lower than those at which they could be produced in Britain, was not only keeping that large army unemployed, but that it was costing the country £200,000.000 per annum in unemployment doles. The “dole” is the curse of Britain to-day. Thousands of young

lads, as well as hundreds of thousands of men and women who have been unable to obtain employment, have been maintained in idleness by means or the “dole.” Per million of population, the expenditure of these relief moneys has amounted to more than the heaviest public works expenditure incurieci in this country in any one year, -hast year with a little under a million and a quarter population, our pub.ic \vorks expenditure amounted to tour and a half millions, that money being expended on works of public utility, most of them of a revenue-producing character. The British Government had to provide a larger sum, by halt a million, for every million ot its 40,UUU,000 people, for the maintenance or its unemployed through the medium ot the “dole,” because the foreigner had crowded the Britisher out of his own markets, and was making it unprofitable for the British manufacturer to keep his hands employed. There is something very tragic in the contemplation of that fact, and more so in remembering that, when Cobden propounded his free trade theory, the British manufacturer was practically supreme, and Britain was actually the workshop of the world,” while to-day she is the dumping ground for all sorts of foreign goods, and is unable to send any of her manufactures into foreign countries, without being called upon to pay duties which make their sale in those countries unprofitable. Cobden’s idea of free trade was one of mutual interchange of goods and commodities on a basis of equality. The free trade Britain elected to stand by, when she gave Mr Baldwin his political conge, is a spurious adaptation of the system which can perhaps be best described in the words of the old proverb, that it is “neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring.” Mr. Massey was right in condemning it as a travesty upon the name of free trade. The one-sided thing so designated .is a policy “fit only for a nation of shopkeepers,” as Adam Smith puts it in his Wealth of Nations.