CANADA'S TRADE

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 135, 12 June 1929, Page 9

CANADA'S TRADE

U.S. PENETRATION

tariff Criticised

Australian Press Association—United Service.

(Received 12th June, 1 p.m.)

OTTAWA, 11th June.

In the course of a speech criticising the Government's tariff attitude in regard to the United States, the Conservative leader, Mr.- Bennett, made reference to the Australian Treaty. "Within a few weeks of the coming into effect of the Australian Treaty," he said, "the Government had to put a dumping clause against Australian products being dumped into Canada. Shortly afterwards the Government by prder-in-Council had extended to New Zealand the preferences granted Australia. The great manufacturing creameries of Ontario were actually importing New Zealand butter and selling "it to Canadians, : because they could not get enough milk." In regard to the United States, Mr. Bennett said the real issue that faces Canada was dependency. The danger was that Canada might become dependent on another country for necessities of life. More than two hundred thousand people moved, from Canada to. the United States the year after the full force of the Fordney Tariff came into effect in that country. 'The Canadian Government encouraged that movement by lowering protection. .Now another tariff, more far-reaching, was before the United States Senate. How was the Government meeting this crisis ? It had done nothing. The new tariff would mean an increase in many cases of twenty dollars a head on cattle going from the Western Provinces. Both the Fordney-M' Cumber Tariff and the omergency tariff, which preceded it, , had affected Canada adversely. Their general effect-had been to cut the es- | ports of Canada's farm products to the united States by a hundred million dollars. _ Canada was buying from the : United States goods to ->the value of I nine hundred million dollars per annum I and was selling to the United States commodities worth five hundred million, and the sales to the United States were largely paper, lumber, and mineral products. Canada was selling her birthright in her forests, mines, and minerals.

The Minister of Finance, Mr J A, Bobb, replying, said that Mr. Bennett was much exercised over the fact that down in Washington, : "where the weather is hot," Congress was. attempting to determine how much more it would tax the women and children of the United States on the milk, butter,and bread which they required for their livelihood. One part of the Opposition Leader's speech had been a statement of blue ruin, while tho other part referred to the existing prosperity. Canada was not trading with United States alone but with all parts of the world. Canada believed she Could best improve trade within the Empire. In respect of the united States, tariff Canada would be taken care of as in the past.