TARIFFS FOR BRITAIN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21356, 9 June 1931, Page 14

TARIFFS FOR BRITAIN

THE INEVITABLE POLICY MR BALDWIN’S APPEAL STRIKE, AND STRIKE HARD. (From Oub Own Correspondent.) > x LONDON, May 1. Mr Stanley Baldwin delivered his first speech in the great Conservative political campaign at Liverpool on Wednesday night. . “ Nothing less to-day than a national policy is of the slightest use to meet the conditions under which we live. By a national policy I mean one which may bo supported by all classes of our people, and may, indeed, be sympathetically supported by members of all parties, I mean by a national policy, a policy that recognises our' duty to our own people before any other. We have nursed our unemployed for some time. Let us try now to nurse our industries.” ’ “We have been criticised because we are advocating a more advanced policy than we advanced a year or 18 months ago. How different is the situation! Far worse, far more serious! We must strike, and strike hard. “The first action of our Government if returned to power will be to bring into force an emergency tariff on manufactured goods.—(Cheers.) I need hardly tell you it will not include, raw cotton or -wool ns manufactured goods. “ The psychological effect on the trade of the country will be enormous. It will give a new outlook, a new hope in every factory in the country. It will start the wheels again. POWER TO BARGAIN. “ I believe strongly that only under cover of Protection to-day can those industries of ours which need rationalisation carry out that essential rationalisation. Only in this way we safeguard our standard of life in this country. I regard it as out of the question that we can ever cut wages to Continental levels. There is not a man in this country who wants to do it, or will do it. I want the tariff to give us power to bargain. After all, our market! is so important that there is not a country in the world which will not be anxious to do business with us and make concessions which may be to our advantage. “Last, but not least, by this means alone can we meet, as and when it comes, the dumping that is going to come as the result of the Five Year Plan in Russia. I will fight to the end for the freedom of our systems at home, against any system of compulsory and forced labour, however advantageous some of our people may think it to have the cheapest goods they supply.”—(Cheers.) To deal with agriculture Mr Baldwin said he was going to ask the electors to arm him with three potent weapons —the quota, prohibition, and duties. The more trade they could do within the Empire the more chance they had of being able to find good Jobs for their own people there if they could not get them at home and to get cargoes for their ships. In his view, Lancashire had just cause for considerable anxiety in view of the information which had reached them from India. He did not conceal his apprehension with regard to these movements, and thought it was a good thing that there should be debates on this question in both Houses of Parliament. SPIRITUAL FOUNDATIONS OF EMPIRE. “We have the greatest task before us that this country has ever had. We have, at one time, to combat these conditions of bad trade and unemployment at home. “We have, at the same time, at a moment when the dominions are naturally rejoicing in their young manhood, when the visible ties between us are almost gone, except for that common link of the Throne, we have to instil through the people in this country and the Dominions that belief in ourselves and our future; that fate in our heritage which alone can bind us together in the years to come and alone enable us to progress. We have a creed in common with them of what we believe are the great principles and qualities of our race —our enterprise and integrity; our respect for law and order; our age-long tradition of fair dealing between man and man. “ There are the spiritual foundations of our Empire. “On those we must build. If we build on those foundations, and to attempt it there could be no greater task given to man, then indeed, we may lay the foundations of a work of which we can never hope to see the completion, but when it is complete may enable those who put the coping stone on the building to pass back some kindly thought to us, to our generation, who in sweat and dust built among the foundations.” (Loud and prolonged cheers.)