THE QUOTA QUESTION

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 76, Issue 105, 6 May 1933, Page 6

THE QUOTA QUESTION

COATES has done a very useful service in preparing a full

statement of the situation which has arisen in the butter market. The position cannot be lightly brushed aside, and it cannot be allowed to remain where it is. Something radical must be done. The position is indeed fraught with danger to the butter producer unless it is handled with extreme care. The first thing required to come to a proper appreciation of the situation is to bo possessed of the facts of the case. These facts must, be viewed, not. from the standpoint, of New Zealand only, nor from the standpoint of Australia and New Zealand. There is the British point of view to be considered; and it must be remembered all the time that British opinion and policy have radically changed. Laissez faire as a policy has definitely gone by the board, and England is determined to establish her agricultural industries on a sound basis, with the aid of the tariff. The policy which the Dominions of the Empire have followed is now to be the policy of the British Parliament in dealings with the Dominions. This policy will not be nice medicine, and the swallowing of it, at the present juncture is going to be particularly inconvenient. But this is the pass into which overseas

statesmen have taken no steps to forestall; indeed, it is by taking the path which has been so loudly vociferated by Dominion Premiers when in England that the situation has arisen just now. England has been urged io engage in the game of Protectionism ; now it has started, and the results are immediately apparent in Nev Zealand.