EMPIRE PREFERENCE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20316, 26 January 1928, Page 10

EMPIRE PREFERENCE.

In the clays when Cobden and Bright conceived the policy of Freetrade for Great Britain she was the greatest industrial Power in the world. Since those clays many serious rivals have arisen under a fiscal policy of Protection, not one of whom seem to wish to follow England's example. Throughout the world, especially since the war, therefore, national leaders of every “faith” are much concerned about the future, both in protected countries, and in the one, so called, Freetrade country. Sir Alfred Mond, who until lately, was one of the strongest supporters of Freetrade for Great Britain, enunciated, while addressing a great meeting of the Empire Industries’ Association, the idea of “Protection against the world, within the four walls of the Empire,” thus making one “economic unit” of the British Empire, as against the economic unit of the United States, the dis-United States of Europe, striving for mutual understanding, the fiscal turmoil of Asia, and Latin America. This economic policy can only be brought about by the co-operation of all the component parts of the Empire. It is being realised more and more that the preference accorded by the overseas dominions to British products should be reciprocated to a larger extent than at present: thus establishing a larger advancement of that great unit, the. British Empire. '