THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES SATURDAY, JANUARY 9, 1915.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16277, 9 January 1915, Page 6

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES SATURDAY, JANUARY 9, 1915.

G Ell MAN TRADE AFTER THE WAS. Whether the duration of the war be long or short, it is incumbent on British communities throughout the world to consider even now the methods that should be adopted by them to prevent the recurrence of such a conflict as that into which Germany has plunged the larger part of Europe. There is a great deal of truth in the assertion that it is because she has been onriched in the past by the countries which are now her enemies that Germany was enabled to enter upon the present war. Mr Ambrose Pratt, who has written an interesting little book, in which he suggests a " post belluni" policy for the British people, and more particularly for the people of Australia, emphasises this view very succinctly and strikingly in a couple of sentences. "Germany is fighting the world to-day with the money she won by commerce from her enemies— from us by selling us her goods. And it is certain that if we again permit her to grow rich at our expense by trading with us she will again try to accomplish our destruction.'' Manufacturers and captains

of industry in Groat Britain are at the jwesont time being strongly and reason - ably urged so to invest their capital and adjust their processes as will enable them to capture the trade which Germany enjoy wl prior to the war. As the result of the efforts they are making there will, it is hoped, be an enormous diversion of trade frr;m Germany to tlio British Empire. lint it is idle to suppose that Germany will submit passively to tho loss of the trade which she has steadily built up with great ;m!vantage to herself. The probabilities are that she will mako herculean attempts to recover it. The conditions that will exist after the war will to some extent he favourable to these attempts. Again we quote Mr Ambrose Pratt : "When peace is restored Germany will immediately endeavour to recapture her lost foreign markets by flooding the world with low-priced German goods. She must havo vast stores on hand at this moment which are now quite worthless to her. She could sell them at a mere fraction of their cost and still profit greatly. When peacc is restored her factories will resume working at terrific pressure, and poverty will compel the labourers of Germany to manufacture trade goods at a cost to beggar foreign competition. Added to which, it is certain that the nation will readily undergo great sacrifices in order to undersell the outer world and gain access to foreign markets in spite of tariffs." Even if there be a note of exaggeration iu this forecast, the danger that is indicated is one that is most surely to be apprehended. It becomes necessary, therefore, to consider the means whereby tho efforts of Germany to recover the trade which she has lost may be thwarted. If they are successful, the effect must be to cripple non-German manufacturers and to impoverish great numbers of non-German workers, and the commercial pre-eminence of Great Britain renders it inevitable that she and her dominions will in such an event be the principal sufferers. It is beside our purpose to consider just now how Great Britain can most effectively combat the danger which the frantic efforts of Germany after tho war to reestablish her foreign trade will present. The fiscal policy to which the Mother Country has adhered—wisely, we think—is such that the adoption by her of any tariff restrictions upon imports from Germany would involve a change that would be revolutionary in its character. In the dominions the conditions are very different. The dominions have without exception thought fit, in the interests of the industries that have grown up within their borders, to enact customs laws which aro of a protective nature. In the case of New Zealand, and of other dominions, the customs tariff has, moreover, been modified in such a manner as to accord a certain preference to goods that are produced or manufactured within British territory. It makes no discrimination, however, between imports from foreign countries. At the present time we discourage impartially, by special fiscal means, the importation of all non-British goods, irrespective of the country of their origin. We impose the same fiscal restrictions upon the importation of goods from our allies in France, Belgium, Russia, and Japan as we impose upon importations from our German and Austrian enemies. At the time at which the policy of a preferential tariff was decided upon there was no reason for any discrimination between foreign countries. Now, however, a reason does exist. Germany attacked the Empire with the object, among others, of smashing British trade and of ruining us by forcing Germanism, including German goods, upon ourselves and the world. The British retaliation to this attack has in part taken the form, as we have said, of an attempt to capture German trade. The same form of retaliation is not open to a oountry like this. But the very fact that it is not suggests the inadvisability of maintaining precisely the same tariff wall against the goods of our allies and of Germany and Austria alike and the desirability of substituting the weapon of discrimination for that of the capture of trade which, at our present stage of development, is not open to us. This discrimination, which should be applied to German and Austrian goods only, should be sufficiently thorough to involve the imposition of severe restrictions upon the importation from those countries of goods which we can obtain equally well from other sources. In effect it would operate almost wholly against Germany. From that oountry New Zealand imported in 1913 goods to the value of £687,935. A glance at the principal items of importation will show that they represent goods that can equally well be supplied by other countries—most of them by Great Britain. The following are the leading lines of imports from Germany during the most recent year for which figures are available :— Motor vehicles £67,352 Fancy goods and toys 52,285 Pianos 51,871 - Manures 45,869 Seeds 31.163 Glass bottles 30,079 Hardware and ironmongery 28,890 Cream of tartar 20,136 Glassware 15.924 Chinawire 12.055 Electric machines 11,720 Bicycles 11,550 Stationery 7,555 Wire fencing 5,820 Dyes 5,645 Clocks 5,415 Sewing machines 5,234 Dairying machinery ... ... 5.150 Medical preparations ... ... 5,085 Salt 5,043 It is by the adoption of a discriminative tax against the goods of onr enemies that we can most surely deny to Gennany any further opportunity of developing economically at our expense; and this seems to us to be quite a sufficient justification for urging upon the Government the advisability of introducing legislation to vary the policy of preferential tariffs in this direction. We should add tliat the specific institution of a discriminative surcharge upon German and Austrian goods should be effected while tho war is in progress. If it were postponed until after the war it would assume the aspect of a deliberately hostile and provocative act such as might be alleged to bo inconsistent with the British conceptions of fair dealing in a time of peace.