TARIFF REFORM.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1663, 1 February 1913, Page 6

TARIFF REFORM.

• Sir,-Apropos of . your laboured effort in to-day s issue to explain, away Hr Bonar;LaVs epoech on food taxes at Asli-ton-under-Lyne, and your feeble' conclusion. that you "can see little to object to, from tlio colonial, jjoint- of view, in tho idea-.that tho Dominions might bo con- . suited as to details after llio British people havo authorised a tariff," I should hlco to ask what your attitude would ho "Mr. Massey decided to consult-tho Brit- 1 ish Government as to details of tho tariff revision authorised by tho Now Zealand peoplo at the last genoral election? "Tlio London "Times'? pulverised Mr. Bonar' Laws proposal in these words, w'liich should meet with'tho hearty approval of every Now Zoalander-.- "No Dominion statesman would dream of dealing with a Dominion tariff on such, lines as those. No statesman must dream of at here "~ I -Sr n V>.°?i- r J. J. REICH. Wellinffton, January 29.

[Although our correspondent is evidontlv unfamiliar with tho question, we do not mind answering him. Ho had bottor refer to tho London "Times" again if ho imagines that "Tho Times" condemned tho obtaining of opinions from, an Imperial Conference. His idea that he is presenting ,us witlil an analogous case is so absurd that nobody who entertains it is amenable to Teason. But lvo will say that tho true analogy would bo made in such d question as this: "If New Zealand wero a Free-trade country,' nnd Britain a Protectionist country, and if Mr. Massey, or any ono else, had won an election on tho issue of Imperial Preference, and had gono to tho' electors asking for a mandate for a tariff within specified limits, tho details to be settled, within those limits, after an Imperial Conference—what would your attitude be?" Our attitude would be (whether we . were Free-traders or Protectionists) that Sir. Mnssey—or whoever tho Prime Minister might bo—was simply acting ■ honestly nnd sensibly, and that nobody could have any griovance,]