TRADE IN THE EMMIE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18577, 8 December 1923, Page 12

TRADE IN THE EMMIE.

INFLUENCE OF TARIFFS.

IRON AND STEEL INDUSTRY.

Tariff questions were dealt "with last evening by Sir John Randies, & retired English ironmaster, now visiting Auckland. Sir John retired from Parliamentary life last year, after over 20 years in the House of Commons, during which he represented successfully the Cookermouth and Manchester Exchange constituencies. The iron and steel trade, more than any industry, said Sir John, was interested in the -question of tariff. Cheap labour in Europe, which was willing to work for a bare living, would make competition by British ironmasters almost impossible, in view of the high cost of coal, which was the basis, and. the labour rate - right through to the finished article. Unless trade within the Empire could be built up on a 'preferential basis, he did not see how Britain could continue to be the great iron and steel manufacturing country she had been in the past. But thero was another point of view, and that was the one most likely to be taken by his old constituency at Manchester, whfcre they were against any restriction, and favoured the maintenance of what was called the " pure gospel of free trade." The export of cotton yarns from England to Germany before the war was of considerable importance. There was no likelihood of a similar export of yarn to any of the Dominions. 'Hie resumption of the export to Germany touched Manchester more nearly, perhaps, than considerations of trad© within tho Empire. ■

Apart from the immediate question of imports and exports, Sir John's view was that we should do everything possible to build tip a self-contAined Empire. While it was not, at present, practical politics to talk about free trade within . the Empire, that was the ideal he would aim at. Unless we stood together the disintegrating elements would get- to work and it would be difficult to forecast what might happen.