BRITISH INDUSTRIALISTS TO MEET WEDNESDAY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18056, 17 January 1927, Page 13

BRITISH INDUSTRIALISTS TO MEET WEDNESDAY.

WILL DISCUSS TARIFF BARRIERS. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. Aus. and X.Z. Cable Association. LONDON, January 15. In response to the bankers’ manifesto in favour of European free trade, the British National Committee of the International Chamber of Commerce has convened a conference of British industrial leaders for January 19. Sir Arthur Balfour will be chairman, and Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister will be the chief speaker. The conference is to prepare a policy for the League of Nations’ forthcoming Economic Conference. The principal British proposal is the reduction of the European tariff barriers and the substitution of reciprocal commercial agreements. Mr Ben Morgan, in an interview, expresses the opinion that this is a very dangerous proposal from the viewpoint of the Empire’s development because such reciprocity is likely to handicap Imperial relations. He instances the Portuguese agreement affecting Empire wines, the Greek agreement handicapping currants, and the German agreement t\ r ing Britain’s hands regarding special agreements with the remainder of the Empire, also the commercial treaties with the Belgian Congo and Zanzibar to prevent Kenya according Empire tariff preferences. A similar agreement deters the West African colonies from reciprocating in tariffs throughout the Empire. Mr Morgan says: “If Anglo-Euro-peau reciprocity be adopted it will delay for twenty or thirty years the full development of Imperial preference and it will mean that Britain will be compelled to take European goods in exchange for British under favoured nation clauses, which policy will drag Britain into the very heart of European politics, whereas it should be directed to the avoidance of European entanglements and the establishment of a Monroe Doctrine for the Empire."