EMPIRE FREE TRADE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 829, 25 November 1929, Page 8

EMPIRE FREE TRADE

ALTHOUGH Lord Beaverbrook’s ideal of a united Empire has been gratefully accepted by the Conservative Party in Britain, the newspaper magnate’s methods of achieving that ideal, by a policy of Empire Free Trade have not been endorsed. The leaders of the Conservative Party are wise enough to realise that it is one thing to have unity and to present an unbroken front to external trading interests, but quite another to gain that unity by a policy that may be distasteful to important units of tlie Empire. Tlie immediate effect of the introduction of Imperial Free Trade would be to concentrate power in the hands of manufacturing interests in those centres where livingstandards are low. The influences would extend to other commodities than manufactured products. The New Zealand wheatgrower, for instance, would be quite unable to compete against vast quantities of grain shipped here by Canada and Australia under conditions approximating to “dumping.” New Zealand fruitgrowers would suffer at once. There would be correspondinggains. but as far as New Zealand is concerned it is clear that the benefits she would gain from Imperial Free, Trade would be totally outweighed by the disadvantages. Her manufacturers would be unable to compete with the products of countries that pay lower wages or have the advantage that they have been longer in the business. A study of the “Guide to Buyers” published in The Sun on Saturday shows tlie immense, and perhaps almost surprising, range of the manufactured goods that are made in Auckland. They range from aerated waters and agricultural implements at one end to wooden shoe lieels and compressed yeast at the other. With all their enterprise, some of those concerns that are slowly building up a national industrial sentiment are having a sufficient struggle as it is, and if such protection as they now have were removed altogether the result would be a national tragedy equivalent to setting back the clock forty or fifty years. Not only New Zealand, but all tlie other progressive Dominions, will and should oppose the introduction of complete Empire Free Trade and the reduction of the tariff barriers by which they hope as time goes on to develop some sort of economic independence. The position of Canada, whose manufactures are now worth a thousand million dollars a year, does not suggest that she will agree to any proposals that would give British manufacturers a free hand in exploiting such a valuable territory and in Australia, the new Minister of Customs, Mr. J. E. Fenton, has dissented from Lord Beaverbrook’s views and ideals.