EMPIRE FREE TRADE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 837, 4 December 1929, Page 10

EMPIRE FREE TRADE

SIR JAMES PARR’S VIEWS SERIOUS DIFFICULTIES “There is a good deal of talk about Free Trade within the Empire. I approve the principle, but there are some serious difficulties,” said Sir James Parr, in his speech at the opening of the North London Industrial Exhibition last month. A report of Sir James's speech has been forwarded to The Sun by the New Zealand Government Office in London. “We have our own manufactories in New Zealand making some of the goods that you make, but which you make cheaper. Things will have to be adjusted by gradual process, so that the people in New Zealand do not suffer, and providing that the difficulties can be got over it is going to fructify, so that you will have a great united people and a great united trade within the Empire,” continued Sir James. “The main obstacle is that Empire free trade is not at present acceptable. unless the capital and workers engaged in industries created under a tariff are protected in some way. One of the strongest bonds binding people together is mutually profitable trade. There is no pact that holds New Zealand to the Mother Country. We can go out tomorrow, and no English soldiets would fire a rifle shot to prevent it. That is the constitutional position.”