TARIFF RESTRICTIONS

Hokitika Guardian, 18 June 1920, Page 3

TARIFF RESTRICTIONS

ADVOCATED BY Jilt MASSEY

WELLINGTON, June ’7

At a luncheon tendered to-day to M'f It. W. Dalton, British Trade Commissioner, by the New Zealand Association of British Manufacturers, Mi Massey, in responding to the toast 1 “Parliament,” highly praised Mr Dalton’s work for British trade and liis m tense interest and affection for New Zealand. He endorsed Mr Dalton’s view that Great Britain would fully regain the trade it had lost in New 'Aenland and elsewhere.

Tlie Government, he said, had decided that a. tariff revision would he part of the business of Parliament in 1921 The work would he long, arduous tnd complicated, as they knew that since Parliament had revised the tariff, thu' teen years ago, many anomalies hart crept in, and modifications were now very necessary.

Mr Massey referred to his advocacy of British Imperial preference in the late conference.* 'Hint was part of the Imperial Government’s policy now, and was in fact the law of the land. This principle had been adopted and a wedge had been driven in-. He hoped that it would be driven in further. He hoped that New Zealand would give it

fuller support. He referred specially to the reliance Europe hnr<l to place on Germany for sugar. They should raise it all within the Empire; but in war 'or peace they should never again rely upon env foreign country for ‘things that -onlrl be'produced in the Empire. England had to give up the idea of according preference to all peoples. They must now confine it to the British Empire. Mr Dalton said that the British export trade to New Zealand in 1914 .v.is 67 per cent of the total, and in 1919 '+ decreased to 45 per cent. The United States’ ,share in the same period rose from 11 to 27 per cent. "He believed there was every' prospect of British trade returning to its former position and even passing it