EMPIRE’S FISCAL POLICY.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18619, 15 July 1930, Page 9

EMPIRE’S FISCAL POLICY.

Britain’s New Crusade. LABOUR LEADER’S PROMISE. United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph—Copyright LONDON, July 13. A passage in the Prime Minister’s speech at the Crystal Palace last night, was devoted to the policy of Empire Free ( Trade. There was not a single Dominion but was developing on nationalist lines to its own industrial economic evolution and no Government whatever its majority may be in this country, could force on the Dominions an economic policy in which the Dominions did not believe. The implication was that a Labour Government had no interest in the Dominions and no influence upon the Dominions’ opinion. “Against that I say that if the Dominions are going to come with us in economic co-operation—if the Dominions and ourselves are to devise an economic and industrial policy which will be beneficial to all of us, then the Labour Government had a better chance of bringing about that agreement than a Government of any other Party in this country. In the Imperial Conference in September, we are going to do everything .that can be done by the British Government to come to economic arrangements with the Dominions, that will benefit the working classes of this country.”

EMPIRE FREE TRADE CRUSADE. LABOUR LEADERS’ MESSAGES. Messages sent by Mr Macdonald and by Mr Snowden to Mr Waterson (the Labour candidate for Nottingham, who was soundly defeated by an avowed supporter of Empire Free Trade), indicate how seriously the Government are taking this Empire and Safeguarding movement, which is ; sweeping over the country. The Prime Minister wrote:—“ln view of the magnitude of the issues, the political cries used by our opponents to gain electoral results can bring nothing but disappointment, as every carefully compiled body of statisticn showing volumes of exports and imports, employment and unemployment, proves. When to this is added an Imperial campaign which assumes that the Dominions will play a part which they will never accept, the bankruptcy of the case of our opponents is apparent to everyone who looks facts squarely in the face. Their lack of belief in their own case is confessed by the futile expedient of the referendum, which they have had to adopt in order to try to preserve some appearance of unity. They are but trifling with the crisis. The steps taken by the Govern-

ment to meet the needs of the unemployed and to hasten reorganisation have saved multitudes of our people from cruel distress during these hard months.” Mr Snowden, in his message, said that the attempt of the Tory Party at the dictation of Press magnates, lu make the lapsing of the lace duties the only issue of the election, carried a lesson which he hoped the electors would seriously ponder. If the Tory policy of extending protection to all other trades was ever carried out, then elections would cease to be fought on great national questions, and the selfish interests of employers in every trade would submerge every other issue. Politics would become a sink of corruption, and Parliament an arena of conflict between various trades, each trying to gain some selfish advantage at the expense of the lest. The effect of protection was to raise prices and to reduce real and nominal wages. Protetion was also a method of transferring taxation from the rich to the poor. The Conservatives were opposing the Budget because it placed the increased taxation on those best able to bear it.