VOYAGE TO NEW ZEALAND

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 10 January 1931, Page 2

VOYAGE TO NEW ZEALAND

SUGGESTION FOR LABOUR LEADERS

LONDON, 4th December. An interesting letter appears in the “Glasgow Herald” over the signature of Dr. John S. Aleighan, who has just returned from a voyage to New Zeal.a^i. “During my stay in the Domiaicn,” lie says, “I met many men pro nincnt in the business world, and one and all considered this Imperial Conference the most momentous ever held in the history of the Empire. ‘The people of New Zealand yield to none in their loyalty to the Britts a Throne. Although they now have young and growing industries of their own. they are willing—eager, indeed —to buy from Britain as much of her manufactured goods as they can possibly afford to buy. In return for this, they ask for a moderate degree of protection for the meat, the wool, the dairy produce, which they sell to us. And this moderate degree of protection is just what Mr MacDonald arid Air Snowden ruthlessly deny them. “In defence of this fatal policy we are offered the well-known sophistries which have long heen used to bolster up the outworn creed of Free Trade—healthy competition, cheap food, etc. ; What use, let me ask, is cheap food to the starving masses who have not the money wherewith to buy it? Little can the present Government understand the grave condition in which this country is now placed through the lack of recovery, since the war, in its production of manufactured goods. “Meanwhile, let me prescribe for Mr MacDonald and his colleagues a voyage to New Zealand. They will find there a most kindly hospitable people, a country with scenic beauties equal to anything in Europe, a surprisingly advanced degree of civilisation and education. During their absence there may yet be tim© for the wise, the sane, the reasonable Protectionist counsels of Air Baldwin and his. Party to snatch the British Empire from the abyss towards which it is surely heading.”