THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS THURSDAY, JUNE 30, 1927. IMPERIAL PREFERENCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19676, 30 June 1927, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS THURSDAY, JUNE 30, 1927. IMPERIAL PREFERENCE.

The Committee stage of the British Government's Finance Bill has produced an interesting discussion on Imperial relations. On a clause increasing wine duties, with the exception of such imports from other parts of the Empire, the merits and demerits of Imperial preference in general have been debated ; not with thoroughness, for apparently there has been but a crossing of swords between a Labour member and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, yet important principles have been ventilated. Mr. Pethick-Lawrence's objection to the clause was aimed at its preferential exception, which he opposed as an instance of a mistaken policy. Mr. Churchill's defence of the clause was an exposition of the desirability of encouraging voluntary.fiscal reciprocity as an instrument of Imperial goodwill. In the former's objection was no antipathy to Imperial co-operation ; indeed, he frankly favoured means to secure it, while scorning the service of preference. Yet between his and Mr. Churchill's points of view there is a crucial cleavage. Ever since Imperial preference was first mooted there have been opponents on the plea of its being an attempt to create a nation by forging commercial bonds. If that were the whole and sole idea of the policy it would be foredoomed to failure. "Business bonds" can never be a substitute for "blood relationship." Much less can such bonds create that relationship, which is what Mr. PethickLawrence's way of describing the policy crudely suggests. In Mr. Joseph Chamberlain's early exposition of the idea this method of fostering Imperial unity had undue prominence. He strove to reach his goal by what appealed to him, after the failure of the Imperial Federation League, as "the line of least resistance." So he championed the notion of a zollverein or customs union. "If we had a commercial union throughout the Empire," he said, "of course there would have to be a council of the Empire. . . .

Such a council would at first deal only with commercial arrangements, but gradually it would bring all important Imperial matters into its grasp." Subsequent discussion and development have not so put the cart before the horse. They have made tariff reciprocity the logical expression of a realised national unit}'. The truth is—to use the terms of this latest discussion in the Com mons—that blood is thicker than wine. This was demonstrated in the crisis of the war, as indeed it had been when there were earlier experiences of assault and threatened assault on the integrity of the Empire. Out of events that made essential for mutual defence certain councils of the Empire there came an increasing readiness for fiscal and kindred co-operation as an aid in realising and extending national solidarity. It has been decreasing!}' possible to exaggerate commercial reciprocity into a primary means of welding the Empire. Mr. Pet hickLawrence's crude description of preference is out of date. Mr. Chamberlain outgrew it. His zollverein project fell into the background of his thinking. The gradual expansion of commercial arrangements into full Imperial co-operation was displaced by his "personal suggestion" of "better machinery for consultation between the self-governing colonies and the Mother Country." From the time of that suggestion, made in 1897 as one for speedy adoption there has been a quickened movement, accelerated by the war, toward the perfecting of such consultative machinery, and tariff questions have taken their place as matters of consequential and auxiliary consideration. They have not been forgotten. They have had much attention, and are destined to have more ; but they are no longer seriously regarded as of first moment in methods to develop a closely-knit commonwealth of British peoples. Some may still echo the earlier Chamberlain shibboleth, "Let us have a tariff union that wc may become a consolidated Greater Britain," but most see things differently, as he came to see, and say "Since we are kinsfolk, let us be commercially kind to each other."

An inherent weakness in the outgrown view is betrayed by Mr. Pethick-Lawrenee's plea— <; If we are going to have a bargain, we should have a good one." Apparently, he would have the Dominion's exercise of tariff rights crushed by hostile duties imposed against them by the Mother Country, and see with equanimity a race to build tariff walls within the Empire. He is on good ground in urging Britain's acknowledgment of the Dominions' preferences by naval protection and special concessions in the floating of their loans in British markets, for there are other preferences than those given in customs duties. But the doing of these things gives tio warrant for leaving anything else undone. Imperial reciprocity should be many-sided, and the commercial phase is important. What is a good bargain 1 Surely it is one that benefits both parties : and in considering Imperial relations no other sort of bargain should be held to be satisfactory. Mr. Churchill's opinion that preference should develop without hard and fast bargains enforced by a rigid treaty accords with com mon sense. There must be room for freedom of action on both sides for the maintenance of the goodwill on which the Empire's co-operation primarily depends. The discussion has served a good purpose by its bringing of this principle into prominence, and the passage of the. clause may be acclaimed as a further step in the Mother Country's recognition of the attitude of the Dominions.