EMPIRE MARKETING.

Waikato Times, Volume 108, Issue 18170, 7 November 1930, Page 3

EMPIRE MARKETING.

FARMERS AND THE TARIFF. IMPRESSIONS OF WORLD TOUR. « ; The speaker at the last luncheon of the Napier Rotary Club was Mr A. McNicol, managing editor of the Dannevirke Evening News. His address constituted observations he made during a tour abroad as a delegate to the Imperial Press Conference. Chief Rotarian T. M. Geddis presided and introduced the speaker. Mr McNicol stated that the New Zealand delegates to the Imperial Press Conference found themselves first faced wth a problem that affected their own country in Canada. They had just started on their tour of the great Dominion when the Mackenzie King Government brought down the Budget with its gesture of British preference, which was largely animated by resentment against the high tariff imposed by the United States, particularly against Canadian farm products. New Zealanders were naturally sympathetic towards this policy, but unfortunately the Canadian Government imposed an aditional duty of four cents on New Zealand butter.

Being Penalised By Canada.

Coincident with the Budget, Mr J. H. Woods, chairman of the Associated Chambers of Canada, had visited the United States at the head of a deputation and said that the United States was not treating Canada as a big brother should.

The position as far as this country is concerned was perfectly clear. New Zealand imports from Canada goods valued at £5,000,000 per annum, and we export to Canada goods valued at £3,000,000, and 75 per cent, of our export is butter. The prohibitive duty on New Zealand butter made the exchange impossible, and the New Zealand Government had no option but to retaliate. Unfortunately for the Canadian farmers, the United States Government, under .President Hoover, had increased the protective wall against Canada, and Canadian farmers realised that their export of live stock had created a demand for New Zealand butter. The farmers were politically organised in Canada, and in certain prairie provinces they controlled the Government. Commanding Cause Needed. Mr (McNicol said there was no use being self-righteous in regard to the Canadian position. If. the position were transposed and Canadian butter was finding a market in this country the New' Zealand Farmers’ Union would demand a protective duly as Canadian farmers had done. The great need of the Empire to-day was a comanding cause, a rallying point, that would unite the people and enable them to rise above sectional interests as they did in the war. The New Zealand Press delegation spent a day at Regina, the headquarters of the Wheat Pool. The pool movement was inspired by Government control of grain marketing during the war, which control ceased in 1920. The next three years saw the_ initiation of three voluntary wheat pools in the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. In 1924 the representatives of each organised a central selling agency, under a Dominion charter, with the title of the Canadian Co-operative Wheat Producers, Ltd. The method of working is to secure five-year contracts with as many wheat growers as possible, for the disposal of all the wheat grown by them, with the exception of the quantities reserved for and foo<’.

The cost of administration is low and the claim made for the pools is that better prices are obtained by the members than by the ordinary system of marketing. The question had arisen whether the pool should be made compulsory. The pool directors were divided on the subject, but a pool taken of wheat suppliers in Saskatchewan had resulted in a majority in favour of the proposal.

Imperial Press Conference. Mr McNicol gave a brief description of the Imperial Press Conference, and said that it met. in London this year at what was considered an opportune moment. It was immediately preceded by a conference of the Associated Chambers of Commerce of the Empire, while it was followed by a conference at Lambeth of- the bishops of the Church of England. Finally there was the Imperial Conference in which all hopes were bent but which, unfortunately, had failed to realise expectations. The Imperial Press Conference was not called on to express by resolution its opinion in fiscal policy, but the delegates could not fail to be impressed by what they saw and heard while at Home. The Imperial Conference had failed to evolve a practical scheme of Empire reciprocity, and it was bound to fail. Mr McNicol outlined the attitude of the three British political .leaders — Mr Ramsay MacDonald, Mr Baldwin and Mr Lloyd George—towards Empire problems, and said that the ‘Labour and Liberal parties were not likely to yield taxation of foodstuffs. Mr Baldwin was in favour of British preferential tariffs but, unfortunately, the Conservative party was split from within. Lord Beaverhrook’s Empire crusade was impossible of attainment because the Dominions could not agree to free trade within the Empire, and Lord Beaverbrook had given no details of his scheme. The campaign to buy British goods in the Dominions was really of little avail while Britain allowed her manufactures to be undersold in London and elsewhere by foreign importations.

The Fiscal Policy

The -question of protection of British manufactures was purely one for British people. Any radical alteration of fiscal policy in Britain must mean a general election, and the passing of legislation would take at least a year. It would be another year or more before any beneficial effect would be felt, and in the meantime a number of economic problems would have solved themselves. The main thing for farmers to do was to strengthen their hold on the Home market by the quality of their output. Mr 'McNicol said he was not depressed by conditions in the Homeland. He thought there’was a great deal more to fear in some of the Dominions.