PASSING OF FREETRADE

Hokitika Guardian, 18 March 1931, Page 5

PASSING OF FREETRADE

HOW' LONG CAN W'F ENDURE?

LONDON, February 7

A useful contribution to the fiscal controversy is to be found in a pamphlet, “The Passing of Freetrade,” published under the auspices of the Federation of British Industries, by its economic adviser, Mr It. G. Glenday.

It gives an analysis'of the uses of a scientifically applied tariff in reviving the British export trade. Mr G load ay estimates the loss to the country through 500,000 men being unemployed for 10 years tit £2,435,000,000, equivalent to between onefifth and mic-fourth of our total war debt. “The question, therefore,he declares, “is not, ‘Will a tariff cause losses!’ but rather, ‘How much longer can we endure the appalling losses of Freetrade V ”

The pre-war success of Freetrade, Mr Gleudny contends, was based on a number of favourable conditions —the smooth functioning of. the gold standard, the free movement of labour, the elasticity of costs of production—which no longer hold good. In particular, the Freetrade system depended on the continuous development of new markets in backward countries, in order to absorb our, export surplus. Owing, partly, to the entry into this field of other leading countries, partly to the development of industries in the countries formerly backward, the scope for the profitable investment of British capital abroad on the old lines has become progressively restricted. Mr Glenday maintains that it is no longer to be recovered under the Freetrade system. BARG AINING POWER. But, ho asserts, “we must strive to reproduce the pre-war system of foreign investment and export, so far as the conditions of the post-war world will allow.” That is the direction in which, he thinks, prosperity lies, but it can only he dona with the aid of a tariff. The tariff, it is urged, would not only afford the'stimulus to such foreign, investment. hut hy moans of the bargaining power which it gives would directly assist in increasing the sale of British goods which must accompany the new foreign investment policy. Business schemes of this kind, Mr Glenday states, would afford a much more valuable solution for unemployment than any promotion of “unemployment schemes” at Home.