CUSTOMS UNION

Wanganui Chronicle, 4 October 1947, Page 5

CUSTOMS UNION

SCOTTISH PAPER S COMMENT N.Z. OPENLY AGAINST THE PROPOSAL (Special N.Z.P.A. Correspondent.) Red. 6 p.m. ... London, Oct. 3. The city editor of the “Glasgow Herald.” discussing Mr. Ernest Bevin’s Customs Union proposal, says it is not surprising that New Zealand openly, and Australia and South Africa, discreetly, have let it be known that the idea of a customs union is “quite unacceptable to them.” “Canada’s case is exceptional, because it is quite impossible for her to choose a course of action which would mean cutting herself away from the United States,” says the “Herald.” “It is obvious that if a Customs Union is formed between one country which is in a high stat e of industrial development and others which are not similarly developed, the manufacturing country will be encouraged to expand its exports and the others will not be in a position to compete with it. It is clear, therefore, that any agreement which is aimed at the abolition of duties between the United Kingdom and thp Dominions wil( find little fafour with the latter. “It would always be argued that the abolition of duties meant putting the workers in the Dominions out of a job or, at best, transferring them from manufacturing industries to less lucrative occupations. Although a Customs Union in the sense implied by the Benelux Union between Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg, obviously is not applicable to the British Commonwealth ',there is no reason to suppose negotiations with the Dominions will yield no result. “It will, however, be a question of co-ordinating development and not of reducing duties. British countries have a great advantage in that they speak the same language and understand each other’s ideas. There is thus reason to hope that adjustments can be effected between them which will fit their making a production effort more closely to the altered requirements of the post-war world.’