The Wanganui Herald. [PUBLISHED DAILY.] TUESDAY, MARCH 21, 1911. A WARNING NOTE.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXVI, Issue 13331, 21 March 1911, Page 4

The Wanganui Herald. [PUBLISHED DAILY.] TUESDAY, MARCH 21, 1911. A WARNING NOTE.

Sik William Lyne (cx-Premicr and Treasurer of New South Wales and up till recently Treasurer of the Australian. Commonwealth) has been on a visit to Canada, and returns uttering a warning note concerning reciprocal Empire arrangements. He is convinced that if the treaty between the United States and Canada is ratified, Canada will be annexed to the United States in eight or ten years, and that the British Empire will begin to disintegrate; and he attributes the reciprocity negotiations to the failure of the British Government in 1907 to make a preferential treaty with the self-governing dominions. The “Herald” expressed a similar opinion when the negotiations between Canada and the States were first reported, and subsequent events have tended to strengthen this view. Canada originally gave an allround preference to the British mamifac tnrer of 33J- per cent., but there was no response on behalf of Britain. The Freetrade door was firmly bolted, and up to the present still remains barred. Britain has been as deaf to the pleadings of colonial and Imperial statesmen as the golden calf was to the inidgnant denunciations of Moses. And it is not surprising that Canada has since revised her tariff, and is now negotiating with the United States, with which country trade can be conducted on more equitable terms than with Britain. Most of Canada’s exports go to Britain at the present time; most of her imports come from the United States. Should the treaty be ratified, Britain will have still less of Canada’s trade. There is a grim truth in Carlyle’s reflection that “man by nature hates change, and seldom will he quit his old house until it falls about his ears.” By obstinate belief in the permanent truth of systems and institutions that were only temporarily good, the decay of nation after nation has been wrought. Their government became a fossa! where it ought to have remained a growth. And this is what Sir William Lyne predicts for Britain if she persists in snubbing her oversea Dominions. Indeed it is the colonics that alone have saved Bri- ' tain’s manufacturing position up to the I present , point. Of course it is idle to deny jythat by comparison, say, with teii or I twenty years ago, Britain is better off. Her (trade, both export and import, has largely \ .developed and , increased, and she still

ho’.ds pride o£ position among the trading nations of the world, hut, on the same comparison, two of Britain’s protected rivals—Germany and the United States —■ show much more marked progress. Britain is progressing, hut her trade with foreign countries is not increasing—it is diminishing. It is the colonies, as we have said, that have saved the position. Britain is progressing, hut the rate of progress is slowing down..Yes, Britain is progressing, but not enough to prevent her from being driven down by the two great protected countries to the third place in the world’s commerce, and that, too, before this century has progressed very far. With another 1 20 years of “free imports" and the persistent refusal of Britain to treat her colonies in a preferential way, both Hie United States and Germany will supplant tire Mother Country in the proud position she has so long hold of being tire chief trading community in the world. If Freetrade continues to be maintained by Britain, other colonies will most assuredly follow Canada's example and enter into reciprocal arrangements with foreign countries, and then good-bye to Imperial trade. The suggestion has already been made in New Zealand with regard to negotiating with Germany over our frozen meat. It has been pointed out that the Dominion stands to gain immensely by the ripening of German polls to our produce, while it would be to the interests of the German manufacturer if the tariff on German goods entering New Zealand were removed. Where there is smoke there is fire, and all that is necessary to produce the flame is persistent fanning. There is a shred of comfort in the fact that an Imperial Conference is shortly to lie held, and once again the voice of the oversea dominions will lie head with no uncertain sound.