TARIFF TROUBLES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 722, 23 July 1929, Page 16

TARIFF TROUBLES

i i IMPERIAL PREFERENCE ‘L (Special to THE SUN) 1 WELLINGTON, Today. 1 “Nothing so seriously affects the costs of the primary producer as a protective tariff, though some form of tariff is essential.” SO said Mr. W. J. Polson, president i of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union, during an address at the an‘nual conference which opened at Wellington today. “We have not yet reached the millenium, and while nations are building up tarifi: protection against one another it is worse than useless for this small and isolated community to cherish any illusions about free trade,” said Mr. Poison. “It simply cannot be done. All that we can hope to do is to secure that our interests as primary producers are not neglected when tariff revisions are made, and that while noisy groups are creating clamour and confusion, we do not wake up and find what happened last time—that a whole list of farm requisites had an extra tariff.placed upon them. “But while we may be unableito materially influence the tariff, we can throw our weight on the side of Imperial preference, which is another name for an adjustment to enable the British Empire to trade within itself Without such tariff barriers as may be raised against the foreigner. Imperial preference does not necessarily mean free trade, but it is a long way nearer it than the existing plan and might, in the long run, mount to practical free trade. Britain today is much as the German States were before the genius of Bismark welded them into one composite Whole, instead of a group of communities each with a. tax barrier against his neighbour. She has the great advantage over Germany that within her Widespread realm she can produce all her own requirements and many of the requirements of the nations.”