DOMINIONS’ VIEWPOINT

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18353, 22 March 1934, Page 7

DOMINIONS’ VIEWPOINT

POLICY OP RESTRICTION LONDON, March 13. For the young, semi-developed agricultural countries to lave agreed to a general policy of restriction would have meant stagnation, says the second special article in the Times on Empire agriculture. This, the writer says, is what Mr. S. M. Bruce termed a “doctrine of intolerable pessimism.’' Great Britain’s attitude for 40 years until 1932 was consistent toward the Dominions' economic development, namely, that their part in the Imperial seheme was the production of food and raw materials and the absorption of immigrants. Industrial activity behind a tariff shelter ivas regarded as not only uneconomic, but in some cases a departure from the spirit of Imperial co-operation. Even at the Ottawa Conference there was little indication with what importance Britain was about to regard her agriculture. Dominion opinion was illprepared for the past 18 months’ vigorous compaign for the protection of British agriculture against foreign and even Dominion produce. Dominion farmers and statesmen willingly concur in Britain’s protection of her agriculture against Empire produce provided the latter has a substantial preference over foreign, but the present policy of quota regulation has seriously alarmed them. The Dominions hoped that the British adoption of quotas would be accompanied, first of all, by severe restrictions of foreign produce. They therefore watched uneasily Britain’s recent commercial treaties with their main foreign competitors. The Dominions regard any restriction of markets, particularly in Great Britain, as a threat to their national aspirations. On the other side, Britons are determined to re-establish British agriThe Government has realised that moderate tariffs are ineffective, but higher duties would have rou.sed political objections, hence the alternative policy of quotas. Britain is not likely to join the countries practising extreme agrarian protection.