BRITAIN SATISFIED

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18236, 3 November 1933, Page 4

BRITAIN SATISFIED

18 MONTHS OF TARIFF EXPANSION IN KEY INDUSTRIES LONDON, Sept. .14. Tariffs have been a success in the United Kingdom. Eighteen months ago when this country abandoned her historic role us tho greatest free trade unit in the world, the direst prophecies were heard about her economic future. Now they have been dispoved. In spite ot wholly abnormal business conditions a over the globe, British domestic trade has expanded slowly but steadily and. more employment has been found for some hundreds of thousands of workers. MARKED EXPANSION IN KEY INDUSTRIES These encouraging facts emerge from a survey of the effects of the British customs duties recently made by certain of the. London banks. They find, in accordance with the Board of Trade index of production, thiit there was greater output.in the second quarter of the present year than in the preceding three months or in the corresponding period of 1932. Marked expansion in such key industries as iron and steel has been an outstanding feature. These gains have gone on side by side with heavy declines in foreign commerce, thus showing that, in a measure at least, the improvement must be attributed’ to tariffs which have reserved a large share of the home market to the home manufacturer and producer. As well as this, later hank statistics show that the domestic demand is still expanding. ( “At long last," says the Midland Bank, “our charts give evidence of substantial and sustained improvement in business. Tho curve of employment shows an encouraging rise, tho volume of industrial production is at a higher level than it was a year ago, and it is spread over a wider range of industries. Bank clearings, also, arc moving upwards. COST OF, LIVING IS ONLY SLIGHTLY HIGHER At the same time the cost of living has goue up only slightly. This js in

striking contrast to the gloomy forecasts of the free-traders who two years ago insisted that: tariffs would put up prices absurdly and make living extravagantly dear. The saving on unemployment, also, has been notable. The unemployment insurance scheme now costs the Treasury £26,000,000 less than it did a year ago. What this means to tho taxpayer can be estimated from the fact that the Yield of income tax is approximately only £20.000,000 for every sixpence m the pound. , . , Tariffs, in fact, have almost • become an accepted part of the economic architecture of this country. Only in their Ottawa Conference aspect does one hear of them critically. And that criticism is directed not against United Kingdom tariffs, but against those of the Dominions. The Canadian and Australian tariff boards come in for frequent attack and manufacturers here declare that there must be no unwillingness oversea to carry out tho spirit of tlm Ottawa pact if Great Britain is to do the same. PATIENCE WITH CANADIAN BOARD “Complaint has been heard lately,” savs the Financial Times, one of the leading London business newspapers, “that the Canadian Tariff Board has been slow .in functioning and that trade has failed* to respond to the influence of the new policy. But it should be remembered that owing to the fall m her primary products, Canada has made strenuous efforts to restrict imports and improve her balance of trade. Act h British proportion of those imports rose 4 per cent, in the first half of this year, compared with 1932. On the question of Empire preference, therefore, the journal asks British manufacturers to suspend judgment until it has had a fair try-out—for as long a period, at least, as Britain has ha tariffs. .