OTTAWA AGREEMENTS IN REVIEW.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 103, 18 May 1937, Page 6

OTTAWA AGREEMENTS IN REVIEW.

As was said yesterday, the questions of foreign policy and Imperial defence are those which are likely to bulk most largely in the proceedings of the Imperial Conference which is to get down to serious work to-day. It is most likely, however, that what will mainly interest the great majority of people, and particularly of the primary producers, of the Dominions are the prospects with respect to trade agreements with the Old County. Truth to tell, it does not seem as if, in this regard, very much is to be expected from the Conference as such. It has been pretty clearly intimated that no such general discussions of intra-Imperial trade as were a feature of the Otawa Conference of 1932 are likely to enter into the agenda for the present assemblage. Then the British delegation, under Mr. Baldwin, set out with the idea of arriving at tmderstandings which, while taking eventual form in separate agreements with the individual dominions, would still be based on a broad consideration of the interests of all. It would seem that now, with the experience of nearly five years as a guide, the British Government prefers to adopt the course of deaiing quite independently with ea.ch dominion, taking cognisance only of circumstances and conditions as affecting it. That this will be the case is made all the more appajrent by the fact that, without jhought for the Conference, then already arranged, and without consulting the other dominions, the British Government, some two or three months ago, entered into what was virtualy an entirely fresh trade agreement with Canada. It may theref ore be assumed that the reports we shall get of proceedings at the Conference itself will have very little to tell us about negotiations for trade agreements with the other v. oversea dominions. These may be conducted either concurrently with the sittings of the Conference or be left till after its main business has been disposed of, the latter course being the more likely. " The fact of the matter is that, while the dominions have been fairly well satisfied with the working results of .the Ottawa agreements, the same can scarcely be said of the producers in the United Kingdom, both agricultural and manufacturing. They, whether rightly or wrongly, feel that in operation the agreements have proved of much greater advanatge to the interests of dominion producers than to their own* They also feel, again whether rightly or wrongly, thait the dominions have not paid the regard expected ofl tbem tp the spirit of the agreements, or indeed, in. some cases to the letter., Taking a broader view, there are those who hold that the Ottawa Conference worked definite harm in other directions. As one writer npon it and its results puts it, "it tended to confirm the preposterous idea that when a country purchases goods from abroad it does so as a favour — a friendly and generous act. It directed its attention to the interests of the selling classes, to the profits of the farmers, industrialists and business men concerned and not at all to the gains or losses of consumers." Beyond this it is held by some to have had other harmful reactions on world trade in the way of epmmitting Great Biutain to something of a permanept protectiye policy, thus justifying other countries in maintaining their own tariff barriers to international commerce. It, in fact, according to this argument, acted as a stimulant elsewhere to that "eeonomic nationalism" of which Great Brjtaiin makes the loudest eomplaint. "The 'Spirit of Ottawa,' " says the writer already quoted, "was indeed one of the elements of current world econpmic policy whereby statesmen, instead of checking the crisis, merely help to prolong and intensify it." These a(re eontentions that it is not necessary for us here altogether to accept in order to recognise that they bear considerable weight in the Old Country, at least among economists, who exereise a good deal more influence there than they do here. In any event, we must be prepared for whatever new agreements may be reached being cast on much more definite lines than the old ones, and perhaps with greater regard for the promotion of Great Brjtain's foreign trade upon which our customers there depend so largely for the means wherewith to buy our produce. How crude is even our own Prime Minister conception of the considerations that must be taken into aiccount by the British GovCrnment is shown by what he said at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon in London: "We are ready to produce more butter in New Zealand. Are you ready to make a deal? That's what New Zealand is asking." Very simple, of course, but with scant thought for the realities.