Manawatu Daily Times TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1925. Britain’s Empire Customers

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 2310, 1 December 1925, Page 6

Manawatu Daily Times TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1925. Britain’s Empire Customers

•New Zealand has just decided to make a further contribution to Empire trade by increasing to 50 percent the ratio of British material and workmanship that must be in goods qualifying for preferential treatment Previously the proportion was only 25 per cent, which meant that a great quantity of foreign goods thinly camouflaged as British slipped by the Customs. Britain is looking to her oversea Dominion markets for salvation, and notwithstanding many difficulties the volume of trade through

such channels is steadily increasing. In a recent speech that fiery apostle of Empire trade, Mr L. S. Amery, Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, gave some illuminating statistics on the value of the Empire as a market for British goods. He said Britain’s hope of restoring her trade lay in the development of the unlimited resources of the British Empire and in giving direction to their trade that would enable those resources to be more fully developed. Trade returns showed that one Australian or New Zealander was worth to Britain as a purchaser of her manufactures GOO times as much as a Russian, 100 times as much as a Chinaman, 20 times as much an an American, and many times more than the citizens of any European nation. The country’s net export trade to Europe was only £32,000,000 in one whole year; to foreign countries £98,000,000, and to the British Empire £165,000,000. When figures were thus analysed instead of being taken only in the gross, their Empire trade was worth five times as much as the European trade. “I have no patience with people who say that Dominion preference is a sham,” said Mr Amery. “There are complaints at the revision -of the Australian tariff. Industries

have suffered, but, taking the taritt as a whole, the number of items which have been put on the free list if coming from British sources and subject to duty if coming from foreign sources has gone up from 275 to 811.” It was significant that the new Australian tariff gave deliberate help to those British industries which seemed willing to help themselves. The net effect was to increase by something like half a million a year the value of the preference given by Australia to Britain. Until the country as a whole was really educated to the overwhelming importance of Empire development and trade and gave to its Government a clear mandate to carry out whole-heartedly and over the whole scale of production a policy of Empire preference, they would not make the progress they ought to make and would not bo able to deal with the critical situation with which they were faced.