THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS FRIDAY, APRIL 11, 1930. TARIFF TENDENCIES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20537, 11 April 1930, Page 10

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS FRIDAY, APRIL 11, 1930. TARIFF TENDENCIES.

A second time within a very brief period representatives of the Liberal and Labour Parties in Great Britain have met, in a social way, but with the added motive of considering how to join their forces in defence of free trade. They have come to an understanding in another way, with an arrangement that is generally considered to have removed the possibility of a general election for at least a year, if not longer. This loose alliance, iri which support for Labour's Coal Bill was understood to be given in return for a sympathetic consideration of the Liberal desire for electoral reform, has not been designed to outlast the present Parliament, or even to continue throughout its whole normal term. No hint of a suspension of hostilities on the platform was contained in the outline of it given to the public. If, however, the forecasts of a country-wide campaign on the tariff issue are correct, leading members of the Liberal and Labour Parties will appear together on the platform making common cause. Their agreement will be on but one subject, itis true, but it will be a new development in political life as it has been known in the past two decades at least. It is, a tribute to the public attention that, has been drawn 1o the tariff question of late, almost, wholly by the Conservative Party. The campaign in favour of Empire free trade, the agreement made between the official Conservatives and the Beaverbrook organisation, the continued emphasis that is being placed on safeguarding—all these things are undoubtedly causing a stir in the free trade camp. It is evident that political bodies will soon come to grips on the fiscal question in a more clefinite way than they have since the days of Joseph Chamberlain. New political alignments seem possible as a result. To follow the trend of political discussion in Great Britain, especially since the last general election, is to realise that the possibility of substantial departure from the historic policy of free trade can no | longer be scouted. Its defences j have been subjected to continuous attack practically ever since the war, and the assaults have been growing in intensity of late. Whether the variation be in the shape of safeguarding duties, preference for Empire goods, retaliatory action against State-aided foreign competition, or straight-out protection for industry, described in the bluntest terms, it is being constantly suggested to the electorate in some form or another. The free trader is being forced, by concrete instances, to realise that the advocacy of his cause is growing more difficult. The German subsidy on grain sold in the British market has undoubtedly been an awkward thing to explain away. Recently the President of the Board of Trade was asked whether the tariff truce discussed at Geneva would not mean the stabilisation of Continental tariffs against British goods at thenpresent level, with Britain absolutely prevented from taking any retaliatory action because she has no tariffs. He denied it. A truce would not necessarily preserve the status quo, he said. Present tariffs would not go any higher, but there was nothing to prevent their being reduced, and there would be negotiation to that end. He could not, however, give any evidence of the intention in any country to lower its tariff under a truce, nor could he make an impressive case for the idea of negotiation, since Britain has no terms to offer. He left., in fact, the impression that the truce, if it were arranged, would result exactly as his questioner suggested. With such discussions frequent, it is not strange if the impression is growing that rigid adherence to the free trade ideal, admitting no exceptions, puts Great Britain at a perpetual disadvantage in the struggle for the markets of the world. Theory may be against it, but theory is a poor consolation to a depressed electorate.

Among the signs which suggest that there is cause for defensive action by the free traders have been public desertions from their camp. The Chamberlain tariff reform cam-

paign of 1003 caused members of the Conservative Party to renounce their allegiance to it. Mr. Winston Churchill was one of them. A change of policy is not an unusual cause of such defections. When former supporters begin to leave a party because it will not admit that a given and long-accepted policy can be varied in any circumstances, the move is-' much more significant. Only a week or two ago Captain Guest, a former Liberal stalwart, offered his services to the Conservatives on the ground that he doubted whether economic and fiscal systems based on the conditions of a quarter of a century ago could remain unchallenged. Mr. C. A. McC'urdy, who sat iri Parliament for 13 years as a Liberal, testifies in a signed article to his support for Empire free trade. He says he is a convinced and unrepentant free trader, but does not agree that the policy should stand unvaried in all circumstances. In his view the spectacle of Britain's trade shrinking steadily in the markets of the world demands a revision of conceptions and practices previously

accepted as inviolable. These are only two examples, but they lend colour to the contention that among business men, industrialists, and in the ranks of organised labour there is a growing disposition to question whether Britain's welfare is as indissolubly bound up with the maintenance of free trade as has hitherto been believed. Possibly they agree with John Morlcy, when, in his "Life of Cobden," he wrote "an economic principle, by itself, as all sensible men have now learnt, can never be decisive of anything in the mixed and complex sphere of practice." All this does not mean that Britain is necessarily ripe and ready to abandon that system of free imports which has ruled so long. It suggests that the campaign to secure at least a partial variation of it is arousing sufficient interest to require its opponents to marshal their forces, and especially to polish up their weapons, since Mr. .Baldwin has deliberately robbed them of the most powerful, the cry of dearer food. Hence the Liberals and the ardent free traders of the Labour Party—for that party is not all orthodox on the subject—have come together to plan a campaign that may yet have wider political consequences.