CANADIAN TRADE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3959, 28 January 1930, Page 7

CANADIAN TRADE.

REPRESENT A TI ON S FROM AUCKLAND. AUCKLAND, January 23. The Auckland Chamber of Commerce decided to-day to make representations to the Government urging the advisability of concluding a separate trade treaty between New Zealand and Canada. It was felt that the present association of New Zealand with the Australian trade treaty with Canada is likely to act detrimentally to this country. Mr J. W. Collins, the newly-appointed trade commissioner to Canada, will shortly be passing through Auckland on his way to that country, and the chamber has invited him to discuss the matter with its executive, and also to address members at one of its luncheons. The position is set out in a letter received by the chamber from Mr F. H. Leonard, of Messrs Leonard and Son, Ltd., in the following terms: — “ New Zealand and Canada are trading under the Australian trade agreement, which came into force on October 1, 1925, and was made available for New Zealand by an Order-in-Council of the same date. Under the schedule of this trade agreement, meats, lard, tallow, beeswax, eggs, cheese, butter, vegetables, onions, apples, pears, honey, and other foodstuffs enter Canada under preferential rates of duty, the duty on butter being 1 cent per lb. For. some time past there lias been an agitation going on in the Dominion of Canada, headed by dairy farmers, acting under their governing body, the National Dairy Council of Canada. The policy of this council is to ask its Government to raise the general tariff to seven cents, with a preferential rate to New Zealand of four cents—-that is. three cents preference. The Canadian dairy industry is asking for that amount of protection, and it is quite within the bounds of possibility that the continued agitation which is going on in Canada may influence the political situation in the long run. “In writing to the president of the National Dairy Council of Canada some months ago we suggested that the question of tariff could be best dealt with by a conference between the Canadian Government officials, and the representatives of the National Dairy Council of Canada on the one hand, and the Government and dairying interests of New Zealand on the other hand. Possibly it might be found, if the support for the present tariff was not sufficiently strong, the conference suggested above could come to some arrangement for a compromise. In any case, we are quite satisfied that the situation should be dealt with from this end, and not allowed to drift. Instead of working under an Australian trade agreement, now that we have a trade commissioner appointed to represent us, it will be better to have our- own trade agreement with Canada, and if we were working under a direct trade agreement it would free New Zealand from any suspicion of association with the Paterson scheme which, as you are aware, operates in Australia, and is resented by the Cana dians. The Paterson scheme gives a bounty on butter exported from Australia to Canada.”

The chairman (Mr M. Stewart) reported that Mr J. IV. Collins had already been approached on the matter, and it was decided to ask the New Zealand Government to negotiate its own treaty with Canada.