The Timaru Herald MONDAY, MAY 31, 1909. DREADNOUGHTS AND TARIFFS.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13917, 31 May 1909, Page 4

The Timaru Herald MONDAY, MAY 31, 1909. DREADNOUGHTS AND TARIFFS.

The Hon. Mr Buddo, in his speech at the r'armcrs' Union dinner at Christchurch on Frida'y evening, seems to have dropped a hint regarding one of those undisclosed items of information upon which Sir Joseph Ward persuaded the Cabinet to offer Dreadnoughts to the Home Government. At all events we (To 111$ remember meeting with it before. This is the hint that the German explanation that the navy is bring increased solely for the protection of German commerce is to "be understood, in part, as meaning tlio protection of German commerce against the effects of- the preferential tariffs which some of the British dependencies have adopted. This may Ijc so, and if so, it may be interpreted as a. threat of coercion to bo applied to the dependencies which have acted independently in adopting such tariffs. The necessity for " protecting" cu"l- - at sea has become extremely small since the days of the last pirate; but if Britain asserts the. continuance nf the necessity, Germany lias a right to do so too. In either ease, under the circumstances of to-day, there, must lurk behind the phrase the suggestion of forcing trade if occasion arise for it. It would make quite a pretty excuse for any foreign nation, to pick a quarrel with Britain, tliafc some of her dependencies refused to grant to that nation the " most favoured nation " terms when she herself offered those terms. It would serve, the turn of the quarrel-picker to argue that if a dependency adopted a preferential tariff, while the Mother Country did not, that dependency must Cither be disciplined l».v the Mother Country; or be treated —so far as that matter went —as an independent State, to he disciplined bv any other who eared to take up the task. The relation between the German naval programme and the preferential tariffs ma v be >IV Buddo's own discovery j but that is hardly likely.