FEDERAL TRADE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 83, 6 March 1935, Page 7

FEDERAL TRADE

RECIPROCITY WITH BRITAIN. STATEMENT BY MANUFACTURERS. CRITICISM ANSWERED. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) Received March 6, 8.5 a.m. SYDNEY, March 6. Lord Nuffield’s criticism of Australia’s policy in respect to reciprocal trade with Britain has provoked a lengthy reply from the New South Wales Chamber of Manufacturers, in the course of which it states:— “Australia can never truthfully be accused of failing to buy everything she could afford to pay for from outside countries, and especially from Britain. In the aggregate, we have actually slipped behind to the extent of £600,000,000 as onr external debt—most of it representing trade done with British exporters-—and this monumental obligation must be honoured by us and future generations of Australians. Our reciprocity lias always gone much further than anything Britain could formerly do for iy> in terms of preferential duties, and Australia has consistently readily maintained this margin of preference to Britain, even in the face of enormous pressure from friendly foreign interests who have offered inducements of various kinds to be allowed to trade with the Commonwealth on the same basis as their British competitors.”