LABOUR AND TARIFFS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20724, 18 November 1930, Page 9

LABOUR AND TARIFFS.

PRIME MINISTER'S VIEWS. STANDARDS OF LIVING. British Wireless. RUGBY. Nov. 16. In tlie course of a speech at a Labour meeting at Bedford last evening tlio Prime Minister, Mr. Mac Donald, expressed tlie view that it was absolutely impossible for any British Government to tell the Dominion Prime Ministers that tho people of Britain could face a fiscal policy which would diminish their foreign trade or impose taxes on their food and the raw materials used in their factories. He said he was not dogmatic on free trade or anything else, but the fact was that in these days they were faced with certain conditions of competition which threatened lower standards of living. This threat came not from free trade countries, but from protected countries where wages were falling. Whatever rnieht be said for tariffs or import duties no well-informed man could say they would keep the standards of life high and enable the workers in a protected country to maintain their level of living at a really human standard. The Prime Minister said ho thought that a Government which was faced with such problems as was his Government ought lo bo granted some security. Ho did not believe in a general election and did not think the country wished for one.