PREFERENTIAL TRADE.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11636, 14 August 1905, Page 4

PREFERENTIAL TRADE.

Striking support is given, to Mr Chamberlain's preferential trade proposals by Dr. Carl Peters, the well-known German explorer of Central Africa, in a record of his impressions of the English people. Dr. Peters is witty and shrewd in his observations, and his remarks throughout carry weight. After declaring that a ' federation of the English-speaking peoples of the globe would leave the rest of the world at* its mercy, he says: "This brings us again to the question whether the movement initiated by Mr Chamberlain . will be generally adopted by Great Britain or liot;tfor. the formation of a United Greater [Britain- ia avowedly the goal and real purpose .tff Mr. Chamberlain's tariff reform.

To constitute a united Empire in the true~ sense of the worfe two characteristic conditions are, in /all circumstances, indispensable; it m/st be one territory, so far as the administration of Customs is concerned — i.e., /he territory must not be divided by iiftat-State tariff barriers,'— and there must tje pne army organisation common to all. Cp all other points the several units mayjexercise the fullest autonomy, but unlas they solve the said two problems upoi a common, basis they cannot claim to *c recognised. by third parties as a united j/litical organism,, though th,ey may still a sort of national ' synarchy, afte/ the model of the anciejgit Greek Sta/s." The true succession -? of events, aojording to Dr. .Peters, will be preferential tariffs, with protection against the rest/f the world, and finally a true Imperia/ Parliament. "People forget," Dr. PeAs adds .further qji, "that a little Englap is quite, impossible in the>twen- . tieth /entury, that British ■poliqy ■ must be yield, policy or", no -policy at .all,'becauy the domestic economy of" 'Gresrfc Bri/in is founded on an economy that enlaces the entire globe. An England loped of it 3 o,ver-sea 'Empire' could not e/n feed one-half of its population, and Jiul(^ be, politically speaking,, a third/ass Power. Mr Chamberlain, among Aving statesmen, has grasped this fact most acutely."