NEW FISCAL POLICY

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 18, 22 January 1924, Page 3

NEW FISCAL POLICY

SEQUEL TO IMPERIAL CONFERENCE

PREFERENCE TO THE DOMINIONS

(FROM Olilt 01VV CQKRtSrOXDtXT.) LONDON, 7th ■ November. "I want to put a tax on manufactured goods, with special regard to those imports which cause the greatest amount of unemployment among our people; to give a substantial preference to our Dominions; to put no tax on wheat or meat." This announcement, made by Mr. Baldwin last week, may be taken as the most important outcome of the Imperial Conference. With the announcement has come the other announceemnt of a General .Election. The Prime Minister •in a great'speech delivered in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, defined his proposals. He declared that he was not a doctrinaire economist. After the war, had he been dictator, he would have left the fiscal system unchanged. Now, however, there were, post-war problems which required radical and drastic remedies. What Cobden and Bright did 80 years ago had no bearing on our problems today. We were living in a world profoundly different from their world. We were confronted not by any theory but by a condition. , A CAMOUFLAGED PEACE. "It was plain," he said, "that the rivalry, particularly of Germany and the United States, was a rivalry of which he had to beware, and when that rivalry was attaining its zenith, there came the. war. The war is over, and we have peace, but the peace is all a camouflaged peace. No war in history has ever had such economic reactions as the Great War. No great evil can be committed in the world but that there is bred irorn it a "hole host of evils, and from the Great War have sprung in Europe hatred, distrust, and a feeling of narrow nationism which, if not overcome by something higher and nobler, may yet bring to an end that civilisation which the war has shaken to its very baseThis coridition of thinss is reflected m fresh barriers to trade throughout Europe and where before the war moderate protection existed and a system of commercial treaties, you have" now, not only in the old countries but in the succession States of the broken Empires, economic systems which are almost prohibitory to our trade built up between one another. From 1860 to 1880 the statesmen of this country might have been justified in believing that their principles of trading might yet prevail throughout the world, but since thaidate the evidence has unfortunately been accumulating that the vision of years ago of universal Free Trade has dissolved 'like the baseless fabric of a dream,' " THE COTTON TRADE. Referring to the cotton trade, the Premier said there was an aspect which should cause disquietude, and that was the f xport from Lancashire to the Ear East of cotton-spinning machinery. Although' for the time being it swelled the export figuses, it was putting the weapon of competition into the hands of cheap labour, and at the same time there was a. condition of ailfairs in China that was making trading rery difficult;" '''You are' confronted with your greatest market' in India with two factors—one the poverty of your customers,, and, secondly—and this is by far the more alarmm^ of the two—that India, which you had looked upon as a market for all time, in her natural process of evolution is now able to control for all practical purposes her fiscal system, and, like the rest of th*. world, she is going Protectionist. I shall not be satisfied •if I hare any responsibility for-the Government of this country until v.c have 'so.' developed our Empire, and our dependent Empire that we shall be absolutely independent of America. We can grow all the cotton we want, and the more of that and other raw materials we grow, the cheaper we shall get the supplies, in greater capacity shall we be able to' supply the world, and with greater ease shall we be able to pay our American debt. We'can", grow cotton, sugar, and tobacco, and ■we can cheapen them, for, the world. We can ease our own shoulders from debt at the same time. "I know we want to do Cobden justice, because he held that commerce was a handmaid of religion and philo-. Sophy, and that what England wanted, and it was quite true if. it could be done, was freedom t--- import her raw materials, and freedo.-:i to sell to every body else, and that where once Free. Trade was established the beauty of the spectacle would move all mankind that all barriers would be swept away, that motive: for acquiring territcjy would be removed, and that universal peace reign. But in economics as in other things the desire of achievement is a very different thing from securing that achievement. Our monopoly no longer exists. No one else has followed our example, and instead of universal peace we have to quote the late Lord Salisbury's words, "Ever increasing armies and navies hovering like vultures over the carcasses of dvint; nations." " . A WORTHY IDEAL. "My.ideal (continued the Premier) is one great Empire, safeguarding the standard of life of its own people, helpful to all the world, with Free Trade inside its borders,' and its people and its goods circulating across the waters, as in America they circulate, along the railways, to every part of the Empire from England through Canada, South Africa, Australia, regarding themselves as one unit, one land, and one aim. (Cheers:) That is not an unworthy ideal to.work for, but it cannot be obtained without work. In the early days of the United States of America the" original States quarrelled among themselves °over their tariff and many other things, and it was the genius of her statesmen in those early days that mapped out for her the course by safeguarding her people in theirl home market and giving them that great territory in which to trade with perfect freedom, and in those days, and for many years afterwards, it was a far greater task to journey out into the West than it is to take a steamship across the seas to any part of the British Empire, and what the United States of America has achieved the Commonwealth of Nations of the British Empire can surely achieve. We have no less capacity for development than they had; we have no less wealth in our Empire—we have, a greater wealth, if possible, of raw material. LAW OF ECONOMIC GRAVITATION. "We can fulfil this ,great task, and we can do it by binding the different parts of the Empire together economically, and I put it in this way because you must remember that in this age the economic forces are the greatest forces of our generation. The Dominions cannot hope to remain each one sellcontained, and if you don't take steps to bind them to you economically what I may call the law of economic gravitation must act, and they will be drawn into some moro powerful economic orbit

instead of our own," and you will have missed for ever a chance of securing what in time may become the .greatest, markets of the world for your goods. Ddn't let us make the mistake we have so often made in our history of being too late. Events march in these days" and they march rapidly, and an opportunity lost may never be regained. By establishing a secure basis of Preference throughout your Empire you are doing nothing against the principles of Free Trade, but you are making a I freer trade over a greater area. Just ' as it may well be argued that by bring- j ing your fiscal system more into line with the systems of every other country, you are making freer trade the world ever than exists to-day. THE NEW POLICY. "I have only one interest to see that every effort is made to help the people of this country; to help them to hold fast to the standard of life which has ' been hardly won by the toil of generations, and which is now threatened as rarely before in our history. What is it I propose to do? "To put a tax on manufactured goods, with special regard to those imports that cause the greatest amount of unemployment among our people. "To give a substantial preference to our Dominions. "To put no tax on wheat or meat. ! "To examine, co-ordinate, and improve the existing schemes of insurance, and adjust, those evils that affect the life of the people, such as old age. health, and unemployment; and "To develop our estates, our Empire. "I believe that we thereby give new hopes and new courage to our peopln and lay the foundation for future prosperity. LET THE COUNTRY DECIDE. "There is a generation coming that was in the national schools in"Tie early days of the war, children who went through horrors, who spent sleepless nights during the air raids, who were familiar with the tales of horrors, vlw suffered the loss of relatives and friends. This is not a generation that you wish to have at a critical time of their lives in the streets. We owe them a duty. Unemployment is bad enough for anyone; it is tragic in cases like that, if we—and I do not care to what class we belong—do not learn to work at the plastic age we never learn to work at all. For their sake it behoves us to do everything we can to help the trade of pur own country. I have told you the method that I would employ to meet problems of the day ; let others say how they would set out to achieve the end which I know we all have in view, and then let the country decide."