NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19620, 26 April 1927, Page 12

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

A CUSTOMS BARRIER ABOLISHED. Two of the smaller States of Europe, Estonia and Latvia, have agreed upon a novel experiment in their customs relations, having decided not merely to make reciprocal reductions of tariffs, but to abolish entirely the barriers between them. The practical details of the application of this agreement have not yet been completed. It involves more than the exchange .of goods between the two countries free of duty; there must be a uniform tariff in both for all foreign importations. Otherwise, all imports would pass into the country with the lower tariff and then be carried duty free across the frontiers of the other State. A common tariff, therefore, is necessary, and since goods for Latvia may now be imported without difficulty through Estonia and vice versa, their proceeds of the duties on foreign goods entering the two countries must be pooled and then divided on an equitable basis. All this will take time to work out, but the essential fact is that complete agreement on the basic principle has beeu reached. Estonia and Latvia, both of them Baltic maritime States which have broken off frdfrt Russia, have a long common tradition, and the step they have taken is easier, perhaps, than for any other pair of States in Eurojie. All the same it forms an important. precedent, and the working out of the experiment will be followed with interest. THE EIGHT-HOURS DAY. The attitude of Great Britain on the eight-hours day—or, more accurately, the forty-eight hours week—question is rapidly becoming a public scandal, says the journal of the League of Nations Union. Last year's conference between the Ministers of Labour of Great Britain, France, Belgium and Germany on the precise interpretation of the Washington Hours Convention resulted in complete agreement. That was understood to remove the last obstacle to ratification by all the States in question. Three of thern have, indeed, taken definite steps in that direction. Belgium has ratified the convention. France (which already has an Eight Hours Act on the Statute Book) has carried through Chamber and Senate a bill providing for ratification, with the quite reasonable proviso, "conditionally on ratification by Great Britain and Germany." Germany has a bill ready for presentation to the Reichstag, and it is believed that in this case, too, ratification will be made dependent on similar action being taken by Great Britain. In Great Britain alone is there neither bill nor rumour of bill. The British Government can hardly be said to have an attitude, for it has neither declared its intention to do anything nor its intention to do nothing. The one thing certain is that it is clinging resolutely to its position in the rear of an important progressive movement.