EMPIRE TRADE LEAGUE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2509, 16 April 1902, Page 29

EMPIRE TRADE LEAGUE.

Great Britain's fiscal system and the position occupied by the colonies have been much to the fere this week. On Wednesday a conference was opened at the Westminster Palace Hotel, under the auspices of the United Empire Trade League, for the purpose of considering the existing fiscal system, and the need of a thorough readjustment, especially in the direction of closer trade relations with the colonies. Mr .T. Lowther, M.P. , who presided, pointed to the change which had come over public opinion in the la«t few years, and said it was not the South African war, but the permanent increase in the normal expenditure of the country which had forced upon the attention of the nation the gravity of thq financial problem. The first step to be taken was to rid themselves cf old-fangled prejudices and to approach the stxbjeet from the point of view of the present day. He said emphatically that the system inaugurated half a century ago was not equal to present requirements. They would have to grapple with the question from two standpoints — the immediate and permanent financial requirements of the country, and the justice due to the industries of this country and the colonies. It was only in 1897 that we relieved ourselves from trenties which forbade arrangements of a reciprocal and preferential character with the colonies ; and, if it were true, as was stated, that Great Britain had given an__ undertaking at the Sugar Bounties Conference not to allow preferential duties in favour of British products, then a strong movement would have to be set on foot to prevent this betrayal of the freedom gained a few year 3 ago. The bulk of the Government had great sympathy for the views they entertained, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer had never shown himself in touch with the growing feeling of the closer commercial relations of the Empire. The country was tired of played-out theories, and wanted fiscal affairs regulated on sound line?. — (Cheers.) Sir H. Vincent, M.P., moved, for the purposes of discussion, a resolution urging the Government to reconsider the fiscal system of the Kingdom before thp presentation of the coming Budget, and declaring that the true direction of reform lay in the development of commercial intercourse upon a preferential basis between various portions of the British Empire. He quoted figures to s-how that while national expenditure increased, and with it national taxation, the manufacturers of the foreigner were imported in ever-increasing quantities. Last year the imports of competing manufactured good/ exceeded £100,000,000, or ten times thr figures when Mr Cobden boasted that Eng- 1 land would always be the workshop of tht world. While foreign goods came in free,, English goods had heavy duties and restrie • tions put against them. The remedy was t( consolidate the Empire on a eommorcia' basis, as Mr Chamberlain had advocated, anc! then tax the foreigner, answering duty bj duty and restriction by ret-tnetion. A dis cussion followed. New Zenlatid aprarently has some pro Bocs betides the patriotic Grattan Gray. It is stated in the London papers that the following cable mesaagt? has been received from " the New Zealand Peace Society " by Sir Henry-Campbell Baimerman — the worthy gentleman, be it remarked, who stigmatinej the operations of our soldiers and colonial troops ki South Africa as "methods of barbarism " : — "Peace Society, Wellington, New Zealand, support unanimously conciliatory policy Transvaal." That, of course, means in plain English another Giadntone Majuba " scuttle," or, in other words, that all the eacrifices o£ the Empire — including New Zealand — ia blood and treasure are to be wasted and the ground prepared for future troubles in which the Kmpire would lie placed i« a position of the utmost disadvantage. I. can hardly imagine that thra will commend lttelf to the colony that Bent Jorth the heroes of Vrcde and other stout battles. If not, surely it would be well that thiß objectionable proceeding on the, part of that egregio'i- " Peace Society " should be 1 übhcly and emphatically repudiated. I have <iii -o\eral occa-ions informed you of prosecutions undertaken again&t provision merchants for celling colonial butter, including that from Now Zealand, which haa been blended with milk, the leason assigned being that colonial produce is (-aid to be dry. Before the Lord Chief Justice, Mi .Justice Darling, and Mr Justice Channel], in the King' 1 - Bench Division, Messrs I J eaiki. Gunston, and Tec, <rvnccr=, appealed ag.urM a conviction by the justices of Rk-hmcml, Surrey, for having unlawfully Mj!d, to the prejudice of the purchaser, half v pound of butter which was not of the nature, sub->-tance, and quality demanded, because it had: had water added to it to the extent of 7.8 beyond the usual limit of 16 per cent, of water natural to butter. The penalty indicted was £20 and rent* 'Die proceedings .i^ain-t the appellant' were taken by the ii'pondp-iit. Mr Houghton, an inspector under the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts. The buttci \ui wiapped in two pieces of papei. and o:i the inside one there were printed m large type th» word* " Pearks's butter." and underneath, in much smaller type, a statement that the butter was Hc'iuted with pure TCngh-h full-cream milk I>V new and improved machinery, whereby it retained about 20 to 24 per cent. o£ moisture. In a frame on the* wal' behind! the butter counter in the appellants' shop there vva« a printed notice nt large letters to the same effect. It was contended before the magistiatos cm behalf of the appellants that the inside wrapper and the printed! notice in th<* shop constituted sufficient notice, and that theie was no evidence of fraud. In giving judgment, the Lord Chief Justice «aid that the butter purchased was a-ked for as "half a pound of Is- butter." If it should turn out that there were various c las-ps of butter in Mf-r, Pearks's o-tablish-

ment, his conclusion would have been different; but he understood that the appellants were selling one sort of butter only — viz., this blended butter, which was de£cnbed in the notice. That being bo, he thought they were bound by the authorities to hold that it had been brought to the knowledge d£ the purchaser that the article Bold was a blended one. The butter cold was in accordance with the notice. In this case, therefore, he came to the conclusion that there ;was no evidence that the butter was sold to the prejudice of the purchaser, and when once that was established the question of the fraudulent additions of water did not arise at all. He could not sec any evidence, however, that the water was fraudulently added. Mr Justice Darling and Mr Justice Channell concurred, and the appeal was allowed and the conviction quashed, with costs.