Comment on Current Topics

Northland Age, Volume 1, Issue 5, 6 November 1931, Page 10

Comment on Current Topics

PROTECTING THE CHILDREN TODAY a deputation from the Katiaia Womens Division of the Farmers’ Union is to wait on the County Council to ask for the enactment of a by-law compelling all road traffic to halt when the school busses are setting down or taking up pupils until the children are clear of the road. The desirability of passing such a bylaw for the protection of the lives and limbs of the school children was urged on the Council last June by the Women’s Division, but the Council contented itself then by forwarding the suggestion to the Transport Department with a suggestion that it be embodied in the general transport regulations. The suggestion was treated as such suggestions usually are treated in Government departments unless followed up by worrying tactics —politely acknowledged, promised consideration and shelved. Now the need for such a regulation has been rather tragically illustrated by the deplorable accident to little Leslie Matthews, an accident which would have been prevented had the County Council passed the by-law asked for in June. It seems always the way, that there must be similar tragic accidents before the need for action is recognised. Now public feeling is strongly roused in the matter, it naturally appeals to every family who has children travelling in the school conveyances, and the demand of the Women’s Division deputation that at least precautions shall be taken to prevent such accidents in future is strongly supported by public opinion. When the previous request was made it was understood that some of the Councillors had doubts about the Council’s power to pass such a by-law. Certainly the Council has no power to pass any ordinance that conflicts with the general traffic regulations applicable to the whole Dominion, or contrary to common sense or the public welare. But none of these objections applies, and in any case the Council should pass the by-law and risk its being disallowed. Even if legally ineffective its moral effect would be great, and public opinion would see that it was enforced —as long at least as the incident remains in the public mind. Until a general traffic regulation is made to protect school children, the County Council should at least set the example. HOW WILL IT AFFECT US? SPECULATION is rife as to what effect the overwhelming victory of the National Government in Britain at the polls will have on the trade relationships of the Motherland and her daughtef- Dominions. The system of qualified free trade to which Britain has clung so long and so faithfully—and found until late years so profitable—is bound to be modified by at least a drastic revenue tariff, and is more than likely, if the Conservative element in the new parliament and Government has its way, to be replaced by a system of modified protection. Sir James Parr, lately our High Commissioner and later still Empire Crusader for free trade within the Empire and protection against foreign competition, hails the victory as the dawn of an era of prosperity for New Zealand, since the British butter market will be more than ever secured to us by the imposition of a duty on Danish butter and the growing butter imports from the Baltic States. By handicapping our rivals thus we, it is argued, will secure a better market and therefore higher prices for our products. It must be remembered, however, that the advocates of protection in Britain are concerned primarily—like ourselves—with the protection of their own industries and the raising of British agriculture from its present parlous position. And the British farmer is more affected by the competition of Canadian and Australian wheat with his own traditional crop than by Russian dumping. Our butter, our meat, our wool, even our fruit, all produced under better natural conditions than those against which the British farmer has to struggle, compete against his products and help to keep him in a state of chronic depression. We handicap, in our own trade, the foreign importer more heavily than his British rival, but we do handicap British trade in our own supposed interes's. We cannot therefore object if Britain follows our example, even in the guise of a revenue tariff to meet its present financial emergency. A tariff, it was urged by the advocates of protection,

would give Britain a lever to bargain with other nations for fairer trade terms. But it is likely to be applied impartially all round, to ourselves as well as to foreigners. If we are to have a favoured position in the British market we must be prepared to pay for it. The feeling has more than once been expressed in Britain that as regards trade matters the self-governing Dominions were too apt to follow the traditional policy of the Dutch, of giving too little and asking too much. Britain’s old mistaken Colonial policy—of which the American revolution cured her—was to regard her colonial possessions as regions to be exploited for her own gain only. Is not there more than a tendency among us to regard Britain in somewhat the same light, as a market we have a vested interest in exploiting and in which we can claim protection as a matter of right?