The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. MONDAY, JULY 1, 1907. FRUITS OF THE CONFERENCE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 155, 1 July 1907, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

MONDAY, JULY 1, 1907. FRUITS OF THE CONFERENCE.

For the cause iliet tacks assistance. For the wrong that needs For the future in the distance, And the gee* that we can do.

In spite of England's rejection of the colonial offers of Preferential Trade, the Imperial Conference may yet produce valuable practical results; and one of its first fruits is the proposal now put forward by the President of the Board of Trade to appoint commercial agents at various colonial centres, to promote the growth of British trade. We may take this rather belated move as a tacit admission of the fact so strenuously urged by the colonial representatives at the Conference that England is losing ground in her colonial markets. Certainly there can be no doubt about tbe statistics which prove that America and Germany are constantly encroaching upon England's share of her own colonial trade; and though Mr, Asquith and; his fellow Cobdenites still appear to believe that neither colonial trade nor colonial preference is worth England's serious consideration, we may fairly interpret the proposal now made by Mi. Lloyd George as a proof that the arguments advanced by ATr. Deakin, Sir W. Lyne and Sir Joseph Ward have not altogether failed in their purpose. At all events this step justifies the hope that even British Free Traders may yet feel compelled by force of circumstances to abandon " Laissez faire " and to make some attempt to defend the trade of the Empire against the "artificial" and ■"unnatural " but marvellously successful competition of foreign nations.

One of the most remarkable anomalies about England's position as a great commercial nation is that her Government makes practically no attempt to look after her commerce abroad. Theoretically the official supervision of British trade is divided between the Board of Trade, the Home Office, and the Foreign Office. The chief duty of the Home Office in this connection is to administer the Factory Acts; while the Foreign Office negotiates commercial treaties, and appoints Consuls abroad, and issues their reports. As to the Board of Trade, its very title is a misnomer. It approves and enforces railway by—laws, collects statistics, oversees the registration of patents and trade marks, enforces the Bankruptcy Acts, and, to a limited extent, supervises shipping. But it is simply an administrative body, concerned almost entirely with the enforcement of certain statutes and regulations, and it has very little to do with the promotion of trade even at Home. Abroad we may fairly say that the only officials who have any opportunity for encouraging or assisting British commerce are the Consuls; and tbe inadequacy and inefficiency of. the British Consular service has been one of the stock grievances of British commercial men for many years past. But the Consuls themselves are not to blame. They have no specific instructions that compel them to look after British trade or its representatives, and, however patriotic they may be, they have no means placed at their disposal for such a purpose. It is a tradition of the Foreign Office, an intensely aristocratic Department, to ignore trade as unworthy of diplomatic attention, and, as England's Consuls cost her something less than £20 a year on the average we can hardly expect them to assume difficult and expensive duties that the British Government has never asked them to undertake.

The whole question of the Consular service has often been hotly discussed in Parliament and outside; but the facts of the case show clearly that the Foreign Office has never intended or expected that these officials should look after the development of British trade at their respective centres. The mere fact that more than one-third of England's Consuls abroad are foreigners, indicates that British commerce is not likely to profit much at their hands. No doubt Consuls could do a great deal for British commerce if properly qualified men were chosen, and were given a free hand. " A Consul," says a wellinformed writer on this subject, should be acquainted with the conditions of manufacture in Great Britain, with the language, the trade laws, the Customs regulations, the prejudices and the needs of the country in which he lives. It should be his duty to protect England's trade interests, to arbitrate in differences, and to obtain the redress of injuries, while he should carefully collect information of the trade of the country, the market prices and the movements of exchange." But to need

hardly add thai such •work cannot be expected from, official lay figures, or from foreigners very slightly versed in British, laros and customs and commercial affairs, nor can the capacity to do all this be bought for less titan «£2O--a year.

Yet, as we have, said, the strenuous competition of England's great rivals is forcing- even professed Free Traders to consider the necessity for taking steps to assist and protect England's commerce abroad. And the most significant proof of this change in official sentiment at Home has been the suggestion recently made by more than one member of the Imperial Government that England should follow the example of New Zealand, Australia, and the United States, and should establish a Department of Commerce and Industries, headed by a Cabinet Minister. Three-years ago several London journals of repute advocated the creation of a Department of Commerce; and a committee, with Lord Jersey as chairman, -was appointed to consider the question. It reported decisively in favour of superseding the Board of Trade by a Ministry of Commerce and Industry. The Minister of Commerce was to have a seat in the Cabinet, and a salary of £5000 a year, and, though Mr BaLfour and his colleagues were not inclined to take any steps in this direction, the present Liberal Government, in spite of its Cobdenite prejudices, has already indicated its approval of a scheme that follows closely on the lines of the report drawn up by the Jersey Committee. Recently the ■Associated Chambers of Commerce at Home requested the Government to consider the appointment of a Ministry of Commerce "with a status equal to that of other official Departments. And though we may have to wait- a little longer before this hope is realised, we may accept Mr Lloyd George's commercial agents as an earnest of something more satisfactory to follow in good time. These commercial representatives may do much for British trade even in the colonies; but it is even more necessary that they should be sent to the foreign protected markets where British trade is yearly losing- ground. Such a system, organised on the practical common sense lines of the American Department of Commerce, could "not fail to be an immense benefit not only to England but to every portion of that great Empire whose interests are involved in her own.