QUOTAS V. TARIFFS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21561, 4 August 1933, Page 8

QUOTAS V. TARIFFS

In a speech at Glasgow Mr. Baldwin said agriculture was coming into her own, and with the full assent of the urban population of the country. The old feeling that the interests of town and country were diverse was not only moribund, but dead and gone for ever. "The whole problem of meat," he continued, "is one of the most difficult we have had to face. Many people have thought it would bo possible to deal with this question of moat by tariffs. And so it would have been some years ago where you had the kind of stability of prices which you had before the war, and where you had tho monetary exchange system throughout tho world functioning steadily and reliably. At that time if you put a tariff on you could estimato very closely what tho result of that tariff would bo. To-day you have not stability of prices, no stability of exchanges or of currency. You may put on any tariff you like, but your tariff may be absolutely broken next day by depreciated currency in the foreign importing country, by the breakdown of their exchanges. In regard to Ireland, we put a 40 per cent duty on cattle—a very high duty indeed. It has had no practical effect. At times more cattle havo como in under tho 40 per cent duty than came in free. Countries may neutralise tariffs by export bounties. There is one thing that cannot neutralise, and that is a quota, a restriction saying you can send in so much and no more. That is tho thing that cannot be got round, and so we havo adopted that principle of tackling questions of prices with regard to meat The principle of preserving our own market by restrictions for what we ourselves can produce and do 1 believe to bo fundamentally a right principle, and you may rely on the Government pursuing it with all their power. The first thing to be done with regard to the land is to see those on the land can gst a living out of it,"