TRADE WITH CANADA

Taranaki Daily News, 28 November 1934, Page 14

TRADE WITH CANADA

WOOL BOUGHT INDIRECTLY.

improved Relationship.

Having attended the centenary celebrations at Melbourne as the official representative of Canada, the Rt. Hon. A. Meighen, a former Prime Minister of Canada, arrived at Wellington as a through passenger on the Maunganui from Sydney to San Francisco. Speaking of trade relations between Canada and other parts of the Empire he stressed to a Dominion reporter the immense improvement that has taken place since the Ottawa agreement came into operation. “Canada,” he said, “is now taking two and a half times the quantity of New Zealand goods that she was taking before the treaty.

“In both Australia and New Zealand there is-a feeling that Canada sells more than she buys, so far as these countries are concerned. But people forget that while we may not buy much wool directly from them, we buy a tremendous amount indirectly by the purchase of textiles from England. This comes to exactly the same thing as though we put up tariffs against English textiles, built our own mills and bought all our wool direct from New Zealand and Australia. I have found that this fact is not recognised as it should be. This wool we buy indirectly is not included in the trade returns, but it certainly should be remembered by the Dominion Governments. “Another thing to be remembered is that we do not discriminate between the countries of the Empire,” Mr. Meighen said. “We have not in the whole of our tariff schedule any duties more favourable to England than the treatment we give New Zealand. On the other hand the lower tariff you give England here is a tremendous disadvantage to us.”