ANGLO – COLONIAL TRADE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12278, 23 May 1903, Page 5

ANGLO - COLONIAL TRADE.

THE PROPOSED PREFERENTIAL SYSTEM.

MR. CHAMBERLAIN'S VIEWS.

HIGH WAGES VERSUS CHEAP

LIVING.

A TARIFF LEAGUE FORMED.

OPPOSITION OF THE LIBERAL

PARTY-

By Telegraph.—Press Association.—

(Keceived May 22, 11.5 p.m.)

London, May 22. Mr. Chamberlain, writing to a constituent, says: " I am fully convinced that the prosperity of the country depends largely on trade with the colonies, which, under a wise system of mutual concessions, would increase by leaps and bounds. We have been apt in the past to consider too much the advantage of buying cheaply, and have not paid sufficient attention to methods whereby we may have the means enabling us to buy at all. Increased wages areeven more important to the working class than reduced cost of living.''

Sir Charles Dilke, in a letter to the Daily Mail, says there has always been a divergence of Australian and Canadian opinion, though it has sometimes been assumed from the speeches of a few leading Australians that there exists in Australia a desire for what is called closer relations. It is difficult, however, to show that any Australian party had ever accepted this standpoint. (Received May 23, 1.4 a.m.) London, May 22. At a private meeting at Westminster yesterday some members of the House of Commons and manufacturers formed a tariff league to organise opinion by means of local committees, and ignoring party politics, to promote preferential trade within the Empire. After the Birmingham speech the treasurer of the new league secured 3000 manufacturers' signatures to a petition to rearrange the fiscal duties.

Mr. Asquith, in a speech at Doncaster, said Mr. Chamberlain's proposals would have the unqualified and united opposition of the Liberal party, on the ground of the past success of the policy of free markets and an open door.

The Standard says Canada is enthusiastic over the Zollverein idea. Australia was apparently sceptical and Britain expectant. The leaven was working. A fiscal policy must be vindicated by its adaptability to changing circumstances and not by an appeal to authority. LOED ROSEBERY'S OPEN MIND. London, May 21. The Times declares that Lord Rosebery approaches Mr. Chamberlain's speech with an open mind. He recognises that any future cleavage must run athwart the dividing lines of party. (Received May 22, 11.19 p.m.) London, May 22. Lord Rosebery, replying to a correspondent, expresses surprise that his Burnley speech had been interpreted as supporting Mr. Chamberlain. It would, he says, have been unseemly and injudicious in addressing an audience divided on the question to summarily dismiss any plan, if proposed on the responsibility of the Government, to promote closer ties between Britain and the colonies, especially when the idea waseminently congenial to some of the colonies, but he adheres to his previous views that an inter-Imperial tariff, to be practicable, must be just and acceptable both to the United Kingdom and to the colonies, and repeats his previously indicated objection, which he believed to be unsurmountable.