COLONIAL PREFERENCE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13985, 19 August 1907, Page 2

COLONIAL PREFERENCE.

CRITICISM By LABOUR M.P.'S,

(Fboic Oun Ow.v Cohrespondent.) LONDON. July 5. Twenty-two members of Parliament belonging to the Trade Union group of the Labour party havo issued a. manifesto on "The Colonial Conference and Preferential Trade." The signatories are: — Messrs W. Abraham. Richard 8011, William Brace, Thcmas Burt, W. Randal Croner, Enoch Edwards, C. Fenwick, F. Hall, W. E. Harvey, W. Johnston, F. Maddieon, E. Nicholls 5 Thomas Richards, Arthur Richardson, VV. C. Sreadman, Henry Vivian, John Ward, John Williams, John Wilson, and J. Havolock Wilson. ' •The manifesto runs as follows:—"It seoni6 time that British working men protested against the absurdities of some of the colonial Premiers. Is it realised, for instance, that the white'population of Ne>Zealawl is only about the same as that of the Birmingham district, and of Australia about half that of London? Notwithstanding this, eacii of theeo colonies, a.s represented by its Premior, assumes to treat, with Groat Britain, with its 40 million inhabitants, as nation with nation, and to use threats if wo refuse its demands. Yet Canada_ (the one that has niado most advance in national importance), being represented by a statesman,' dissociates herself from these demands. " What ore the 'demands, and what are the threats? The colony of New Zenland, about equal to Glasgow in population, domands—or her Promier demands for her—preference for her '' products and manufactures.' not for foodstuffs only, or raw materials, but 'product* and manufactures,'knowing perfectly well that this cannot bo given unless wo alter our wholo fiscal system, and tax all our foreign imports—under threat of what? Let us sco what the threat, or the inducement, or the colonial offer amounts to. "Our exports to the self-governing colonies aro about cno-sevonth of our total export trade; and our total export trade, is about "one-sixth of our total trade.'' Now_, bearing in mind that the vast proportion of goods that the colonies do not already buy from us are goods that we oannot produce, what would anyone liko to put the value of colonial preference at? A high authority in South Africa put it at 5 per cent., but wo will bo liberal and say IS. But Canada gives it now for nothing, not to mention other minor colonics, so that 10 per cent, increase of trade with them i 6 the very outside, they have to offer. A-eimplc sum in arithmetic informs us that' this is about a quarter of 1 per cent, of our total trade—which is all the British workman is concerned with. Thus 'tho very outside that the colonics can offer our workpeople is an addition to the wages fund of £1- in £400—or, to put it in another way, that we should 'have- i per cent, fewer unemployer—3 per oent. instead of 3|. . . "In'return for this magnificent result, the cost of every necessary article consumed by the workmen would be increased. No wonder the colonial offer is so mysterious that its existence had been doubted. It may well bo kept a mystery. "These gentlemen come here to teach us political economy; wc will take leave to judge of their political economy by their other powers of reasoning. They say that a small rise in the price of wheat wijl not affect the price of bread. • It is -'oubtful whether anybody really believes this foolish proposition. It is as certain as. anything in this world that tho effect oftho smallest permanent addition lo tho price of wheat, as by a duty,"would lo to cause a rise in bread to happen sooner, and to last longer, than it otherwise would have_ dono._ and that this longer duration of high price, and shorter duration rf low price, would, on the average, exactly represent the duty on wheat, however sirja.". "On the whole question of Freetrane it, is well to recall that. Professor Marshall, of Cambridge, probably the ablest of living economists, writing to The Times about' two years' ago, said that ho had recently made a special study of the qupsMon whether altered conditions had made Free-' trade less advantageous to us than it formerly was, and had arrived at the con-, elusion that never in our. history was it so essential to our prosperity as - at the present moment. The attitude of the Government, absolutely founded on this same conclusion, has been railed by the most recent concert to colonial preference—himself Urn merest amateur in such matters—an 'altitude of pure folly.' Comment is superfluous. It is needless to say that one of the chief objects of these colonial Premiers is the welfare of tho British working man I Their anxiety on his account is on)v equalled by that of tho tariff reforming' capitalist at home, who, in his unselfish zeal, never speaks, apparently never thinks, of his eharo of the plunder,

"Tho disinterested attitude of these' colonies'," says the manifesto in its conclusion, "may bo "tested by a concrete' instance. Tho Australian Premier ingeniously proposed a method of raising a common fund for Imperial, but rliiefly colonial, purposes, to which Great Britain would subscribe four and a-balf millions of money and the colonies a few hundred thousand pounds. British workmen do not think thoy arc called upon to contribute to the maintenance of thoiv 'children boyond tho seas' (as Mr Ohamlwrlain calls them) to this tunc; nor are they to be entrapped by those who would exploit Imperial sentiment in the interest of tariff reform at their expense."