CANADIAN TRADE TREATY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21503, 29 May 1933, Page 13

CANADIAN TRADE TREATY

Sir, —With reference to your editorial comment on the abovo subject in tho issue of May 24, I am not disposed to accept with equanimity tho imputation therein contained, that Canadian farmers do not think nationally. Moreover, any consideration of tho present attitudo of tho Canadian Government should ombrace a careful scrutiny of Canada's internal condition. Many of tho grain growers of Western Canada have had four successive failures, and have, to some oxtent, turned to dairying. Tho trade figures you gave for 1929 show that almost half of Canada's exports to Now Zealand comprised motor vehicles, and, as many of tho so-called Canadian car factories appear to be assembly plants for United States material, I think it is moro important in such a crisis to mako an effort to stimulate agriculture, particularly as agriculture is expected to absorb tho bulk of the idlo population in times of stress. If my momory serves mo correctly, under tho previous trade treaty, ratified by tho MacKenzie-King Government. New Zealand and Australian butter was transported from Vancouver to Eastern Canada at a rato somo 50 cents per hundred pounds cheaper than buttor produced in British Columbia, yet tho Canadian farmer had to share responsibility for tho Canadian National Railway deficit. Tho farmers credited the arrangement to tho industrial east, and it is not so very long since a New Zealand paper credited a party of visiting Canadian lumbermen with a. statement to the effect that, provided New Zealand would meet their wishes with regard to the importation of Canadian timber, tliov would do their utmost to have tho butter duty removed. Mr. Bennett, tho Prime Minister, is simply adhering to his election pledges in this connection, and the New Zealand action with regard to wheat might ho cited as a parallel case, as No. 1 wheat in Canada hovered around tho 40-cent mark at a timo when fowluheat in New Zealand cost infinitely more. Considering the disparity in sizo and population, tho 1929 figures, in my opinion, favour New Zealand to a marked degree, and, when ono takes into consideration that the United States market is practically closed to Canadian dairy produce, tho present situation seems eminently fair. It is hardly likely that any public leader will curtail trade without very sound reasons. Canadian Farmer..