FREE TRADE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2263, 7 August 1908, Page 2

FREE TRADE.

THE INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS CONGRATULATIONS TO BRITAIN. United Press Association, Copyright LONDON, August .5. Referring to Britain’s enormous dependence on foreign sources of food supply, Mr. Asquith stated that her net imports, of raw woo] had increased in fifty years from 00,000,000 pounds avoirdupois to over 350,000,(XK) pounds. He admitted that the tar- , jffs of protectionist countries inflicted substantial injury on the British trade hut the best weapon to fight such tariffs was free imports. He ridiculed the statements as to the impending bankruptcy of freetrade finances. Personally' he saw' no cause for counselling despair. On the contrary be felt confident that freetrade finance was capable of bearing the strain of any reasonable programme of" social reform. “On the international side,” he said, “freetrade is bound up with peace and friendship among peoples.” M. Guyot, the French political writer, declared that England was leaching the nations a great lesson. He was confident that the British people would resist the attractions of Mr. Chamberlain's programme. Mr. Churchill contended that tho bearing of free trade on international relations might he summed up in the word “Peace.” “We secure loyal, prosperous, and profitable colonies,” he 6aid, “bv extending to them without demand or request for exclusive preference all we may justly and freely give.” Mr. Churchill admitted that many of the most curious delusions still claimed a large measure of public support. These misconceptions tended to produce disunion between - great peoples. Free traders looked forward to the world becoming a cooperative commonwealth, with its affairs so inextricably woven through the prosaic bonds of commerce that they would he unable to tear it apart, every, part being dependent upon every other member of the vast confederation. Personally he was convinced that free trade ideals would triumph. Suffragists frequently interrupted the speaker, and were expelled. The speeches of the American, • French, and German delegates con- -A gratulated Britain’s fidelity to free trade. The keynote to all the speeches was the intimate connection between free trade and peace. Mr. Asquith, speaking at the Cobden Club banquet at the Hotel Cecil, insisted that free trade economicswere a necessity for Britain, owing to our inability to produce at homo, even under the shelter of the highest and most insuperable tariff protection they could design either the food for our people or the raw material for our industries. “We can,” lie said, “only maintain industries and * fiud employment for our people by receiving the goods of foreigners sent in exchange for our own.” Mr. Asquith emphasised that absolute free trade already prevailed over a large part of the industrial globe, citing tho United States, where over three million square miles internal protection was an impossibility. i NATIONAL RETROSPECTION. THE ATTITUDE OF THE COLONIES. United Press Association. Copteight (Received August 6, 10.50 p.m.)

LONDON, August 6. The Congress to-day discussed tho effect of a commercial policy upon industrial agricultural developments, after listening to the historical retrospections contributed by the representatives of Italy, Germany, Holland, Denmark, Belgium, France, United States of America, and Britain.

Mr. Russell, M.P., head of tho House of Commons section, said that the colonies had killed any enthusiasm for colonial preference. "The colonies had given Britain to understand that, preference or not, they meant to continue to develop the protectionist tariffs on the narrowest colonial lines. They showed they regarded Imperial preference as giving them opportunities of advancing in the direction of free trade within the Empire, and as presenting the occasion for increasing the duties on foreign goods.