ADVOCATE OF EMPIRE TRADE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20917, 6 January 1930, Page 2

ADVOCATE OF EMPIRE TRADE

A CHANGED WORLD. ENGLAND UNDER-INDUSTRIAL-ISED. (From Odb Own Correspondent.) LONDON, November 28. Mr George Terrell, in his presidential address at the annual meeting of the National Union of Manufacturers yesterday. declared himself heartily in favour of Empire trade. He said.— “ For the past 15 years this union baa consistently and persistently advocated that the remedy for our industrial and labour troubles is the safeguarding of industry against unfair foreign competition, and we have also urged that by means of Imperial preference we can develop and extend our export trade with the dominions and colonies. Ido not think there is a shadow of doubt that if the policy of Imperial preference were adopted_ we should very rapidly find our industries on the upgrade, and the bugbear of unemployment rapidly decreasing. “As- far as manufactured goods are concerned. I strongly support the policy, which Lord Beaverbrook has so ably advanced, of ultimate Freetrade in the Empire. Every preference which the dominions and colonies concede us, or which we are able to give them, is surely a step in the direction of Freetrade in the Empire. Safeguarded industry can give greatly increased employment and better wages than an industry which is exposed to open foreign competition/’ They were, he continued, not afraid of competition between themselves and their kith overseas, but they could not stand up against a country where there were lower grades of labour and lower conditions of life than prevailed here. In particular. they could not stand up against the dumping of foreign goods. Such dumping was threatened for certain industries from the United States. If it happened it would cause disaster to many industries here, and would accentuate unemployment. In his opinion the Socialist Government was floundering in the mud of outrageous and impossible promises.— (Cheers.) TO-DAY’S DEMANDS.

Lord Melehett said that since the war there had been an entire change in the economic structure of the world. “It is no use,” he remarked, “ telling me now what were the views of Adam Smith, what Mr Bright said in his day, or even what I said myeelf.”—(Laughter.) It was useless to refer to the old talk of exchange of commodities or of supply and demand. The Manchester school of economics was based on one or two fairly simple principles: buy in the cheapest market, sell in the dearest, and the devil take the hindmost.—(Laughter.) For good or evil—he thought for good—they ad passed away from that conception of human society. No employer to-day would bo allowed to deal with his workmen on the old doctrines and the old ideas.

We demand for our people to-day certain standards of subsistence; we demand housing, education, pensions, and health services costing hundreds of mil lions a. year which we. as manufacturers, know- is an overhead charge on production. It is perfectly unreasonable to ask manufacturers to carry those overhead charges, and at the same time to compete with people who are not carrying them.— (Cheers.) No old Freetrader could ever support dumping, which is an entirely artificial state of things, reacting on the purchaser as much as on the. producer. We want anti-dumping legislation just as there is in Canada. The unemployment problem had not been solved. It was impossible to create “ artificial work.” Nor should the demoralising and wicked course of subsidising idleness instead of work be continued. HOW WE LOSE £6,600,000. Lord Melehett said they knew what was required to put the steel industry in order. It required its obsolete 'plant remodelling, and its new works completed. How could that be done without new capital? It was estimated that if tho 3,000,000 tons of iron and steel which were .imported annually were produced in this country additional employment would be found for 120,000 men (including coal miners). Those men cost the uncmnloyment insurance fund at least £9.600,000. Bv importing 3,000,000 tons of iron and steer at £1 per ton below the price of home-produced iron and steel they appeared to save £3,000,000. but in fact the country lost £0,600,000. That was the kind of book-keeping he did not understand.—(Cheers.) , For her size and population British industrial development had .far exceeded agricultural development, and we had a want of balance which did not exist in any other country in the world. We must, however, stop thinking of England as a little island in the North Sea, and think of it as part of the British Empire. We should then realise that far from being over-industrialised we are' actually under-industrialised. Wo should not forget so soon after the war tho idea of developing Empire resources, nor the power we could exercise in controlling not merely manufactured goods, but raw materials. Great Britain could no longer afford to he the philanthropist of the world any more than she could be the policeman of the world.—(Cheers.)