AMERICAN TARIFFS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20218, 1 April 1929, Page 7

AMERICAN TARIFFS.

REPUBLICAN PROPOSALS.

INDIGNATION IN CANADA,

TALK OF REPRISALS.

[from our own correspondent.] • VANCOUVER, March 6. Not since Sir Wilfrid Laurier went down to defeat when the Canadian electorate rejected tho Taft-Laurier reciprocity treaty has there been such a wavo of anti-American feeling as is running through Canada just now. It commenced with tho Presidential campaign four months ago; it grew witli the repeated promises of the Republican candidates for a higher tariff, especially in aid of the farmers of the Middle West; it reaches its peak just now, when American organisations are placing their demands for higher protection before tho Ways and Means Committee at Washington. Reprisals are already being openly discussed from tho Maritimcs to the Pacific.

At the moment of writing a bill has been prepared, which will be known as the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Bill, to bo the first instrument of the Hoover Administration in giving effect to tho nationwide demand to build higher the tariff wall which America has erected against the whole world. Sentiment in its favour, quite apart from individual interest, has grown from the pro-American interpretation the press of the United States has been giving to tho reaction in Great Britain and abroad to the cruiser programme. Tho opposition to a higher tariff is a negligible quantity. America's Best Customer. Canada last year was America's best customer. Although tho Dominion Government has had repeated requests for tariff protection against the dumping of cheap, surplus-production American commodities, particularly farm products, the authorities at Ottawa have withheld action, as tariff tinkering disturbs the electorate more than any combination of administrative acts. But the period of diffidence is passing. Canada will fight to the utmost any attempt to disturb the fiscal status quo between her anrl her southern neighbour.

Reprisals have been discussed for a month past. The project for deepening the chanuel of the St. Lawrence, at a cost of £30,000,000, a scheme in which America, particularly the Middle West, is vitally concerned, is tho chief weapon with which Canada will be in a position to exact dollar for dollar for damage done her interests by the new United Slates tariff. American business men are being warned confidentially by their principals and agents in Canada and are getting alarmed. Looking to tho Empire, Movements are discussed with the object of looking to Great Britain and the Dominions for manufactured goods coming into Canada from the United States. Western Canada is in a ferment at the projected increase in tariff on lumber and cattle. Eastern Canada is incensed at the proposal to raise the duty to a point which amounts to an embargo on dairy products. The Prairies are unanimous in seeking retaliation against a promised 100 per cent, duty 011 farm products. Central Canada is angry at the proposed duty on grain screenings used for stock feed. These are the chief sources of irritation. There are many more. The United States Radio Corporation has consistently turned down Canada's claim for a fair allotment of wave-lengths. There is a dispute, growing daily more intense, concerning America's allegation of unfair treatment of United States goods shipped through Canadian ports. A Washington delegation that came to Canada to ask that Canadian ships with liquor aboard be refused clearance was politely advised that Canada has done a good deal more in tho past three years than United States toward making Americans observe the Volstead Law.

Canadian citizens are genuinely aggrieved at United States Judges placing an embargo on rights they have enjoyed in "commuting" across the border to their daily occupations. Any untoward act of Canada's that might adversely affect a section of American interests raises n wail that is heard from sea to sea. Tho average Canadiag, who is concerned chiefly with interests and events in his own province, is now taking a wider view of affairs and there is ample evidence of an unprecedented desire by the provinces to pull together to meet the new American fiscal invasion. The vear 1929 promises to so down in history like the year 1911, with its Tafl-Laurier reciprocity treaty debacle