CANADA AND BRITAIN.

Waikato Times, Volume 116, Issue 19456, 21 December 1934, Page 9

CANADA AND BRITAIN.

SPECIAL AGREEMENT MADE. WHAT HAPPENED AT OTTAWA I PACTS NOW EMERGING. Now the fact has emerged that right under the noses of our delegates at Ottawa, Canada made a special agreement of her own with Britain. This agreement ends in January, 1937, while ours ends in June, 1935, and it enables Canada to export far beyond her present output of hogs-—50,000 a week—to the English market (says “Point Blank,” official organ of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union), “By reason of the Ottawa Agreement,” says the'last annual report of Canada Packers, Ltd., to their shareholders, “a .market was opened up in (ircat Britain at advancing prices. The pressure on the domestic market was removed—the surplus being exported—and in 1933 consumption of pork products in Canada declined 111 b per capita." Tlie report goes on to say: “By reason of the Ottawa Agreement Imports from Canada were not cut down. On the contrary, she was conceded free entry for products equivalent to 50,000 hogs weekly. This is much more product than Canada has been shipping or (.up to the present time) could ship.”

The enormous advantage gained by Canada, whose chief export is pigs, can be gathered from the figures for the preceding years. In 1932- she shipped to Britain the product of 300,000 hogs, in 1933 600,000 hogs, and she is endeavouring by 1937 to increase that quantity to 2,600,000 hogs, or nearly ten times her 1932 shipments. Every effort is being made in Canada to build up production to that high point. What was it Dial- Canada did that enabled her to secure such extraordinary concessions from Ihe Mother Country? She removed Iho surcharge from her tariff on British goods. ‘By cutting down her (ax and giving British goods preference Canada made an agreement, which secures her a great and expanding market for her main primary product, while we are threatened with immediate restrictions upon ours.