The Christchurch Star PUBLISHED BY New Zealand Newspapers Ltd. Gloucester Street and Cathedral Square CHRISTCHURCH NEW ZEALAND. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1930. CONFLICTING VIEWPOINTS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19197, 10 October 1930, Page 6

The Christchurch Star PUBLISHED BY New Zealand Newspapers Ltd. Gloucester Street and Cathedral Square CHRISTCHURCH NEW ZEALAND.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1930. CONFLICTING VIEWPOINTS.

London Representatives! R. B. BRETT & SON NEW BRIDGE HOUSE. 30/34 NEW BRIDGE STREET LONDON, E.C.4.

T'VOMINION STATESMEN at the Imperial Conference have left the Old Country in no doubt as to where they stand on the need for reciprocal preferences within the Empire, and there is a somewhat grim implication in the fact, which Mr Forbes has stated, that the next move rests with the British Government. The probable direction of that move, however, was not indicated in Mr Thomas’s speech, and the point of view of the opponents of Empire preferences calls for a little elaboration. The argument of the Free Traders is that dependence on Empire wheat and beef would be dangerous, seeing that threefourths of Britain’s wheat is supplied by foreign countries, and the bulk of the beef by South America. They say that tariff barriers against foodstuffs, and on all raw materials used in manufacture, would involve an increased cost of living which would be accepted by the workers only in return for a higher money ■wage. This, they say, would merely embarrass the British manufacturer, whose costs are already too high for foreign competition. This fear of losing established markets may be exaggerated by the Free Traders, but it is real enough and as Mr Thomas points out, British exports last year declined by 19 per cent. This decline, however, supplies the Protectionist with his strongest argument, which has been touched on by Mr Forbes, that traditions which have led the country into a morass of unemployment, with the prospect of a deficit that must be met by increased taxation, would be better uprooted. The answer of the Free Trader is that although European tariffs have risen, the withdrawal by Britain of the principle of Free Trade would he a declaration of economic war, which might be tile prelude to a war of arms. That, indeed, is a possibility, but economic warfare has already come, forced upon the Empire by such tariff barriers as America has erected, and the Continent is now raising and strengthening, and the internal difficulties of the Old Country are serious enough to suggest that real Imperial preference is worth a trial from an Empire point of view, if it is not the way to bring about a wider and not a narrower measure of freedom of exchange among all the countries of the world. AMUSING COMMENT. A DISQUIETING FEATURE of the Waipawa election, according to Mr Coates, is “ its revelation that the people of the Dominion do not realise the need of a return to a policy of sound and prudent public finance.” This is rich, indeed, when we consider that the return of the Government nominee was almost certainly an endorsement of the Government’s financial policy. If anything has impressed the country within the last twelve months it is Mr Forbes’s determination to tell the public the -whole truth about public finance and public 'works policy. And if the Government’s financial methods had not been sound, we should soon have heard about it from Sir Otto Niemeyer. POWER SUPPLY. r T'VHE AMAZING STATEMENT is "*■ made by the Minister of Public Works to-day that as a further source of supply in case the Waitaki dam should fail his Department has decided that a small station should be constructed further up the river where the lake enters the river. If this is really in the mind of the Department, the absurdity of it should be revealed to the Minister, for it would be a continuation of the Reform blunder of tapping power sources too far from the greatest consumers. We have been told that the Waitaki would supply everybody’s needs, but if the Government has abandoned that contention, the case for the harnessing of the Waimakariri becomes unanswerable.