RECIPROCITY IN FOREIGN TRADE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5378, 22 June 1878, Page 1 (Supplement)

RECIPROCITY IN FOREIGN TRADE.

The following is one of several letters which the London Daily Telegraph published recently on the subject of reciprocity in foreign trade. We insert it (says the Telegraph) because it comes from a business man, and not a sentimental theorist, or a member of what are conventionally known as the “ ignorant classes." It is in reality a plea for protection, as undisguised as auy of those that figured thirty years ago, during the! auti-coru-law agitation;—“ To the Editor of the Daily \Telegraph .—Sir,--The commercial community at large would have been greatly indebted to you had you published Lord Bateman’s letter in extcnso. Look at the pitiable state of the manufacturers of this country. Wherever you tarn they are in despair. But can anyone who has watched commercial events be astonished ? For the last three or four years the number of foreign agents, especially Germans and Americans, has at least tenfold increased. There is scarcely an American or continental manufacturer of any standing who has not an agent iu three or four of the principal towns of Great Britain. These agents supply not only the wholesale houses, but in many instances the smallest country retail shops. Sheffield, Manchester, Birmingham, are standing still, and complain bitterly, being outwitted by foreign competition. Countries that used to draw exclusively their supplies from these three great manufacturing towns now enter the markets as successful rivals. I am now speaking expressly of every kind of cotton, woollen, silken goods, or cutlery, hardware, rail iron, glass, china, earthenware ; and when I can prove that town and country shopkeepers are readily supplied with a dozen of boots, shoes, umbrellas, shirts, stockings, knives, combs, tumblers, walking sticks, or a gross of buttons, steel pens, &c., all of foreign make and iu approved English style, you will then see it is high time to protect our manufacturers at home lam speaking from twenty-five years’ daily experience amongst the manufacturers of raw produce, and I am confident if they are not soon relieved most of them will bo obliged to close their factories. As regards an ad valorem duty, the task of fixing the percentage is. however, not easily accomplished, when we all know bow cooked all foreign invoices would then appear before the respective assessors. An ad valorem duty of 5 per cent, would scarcely be sufficient, as it would at all times be difficult to fix the real value of a fancy manufactured article within 5 per cent. Ten per cent., however, would effctually protect our manufacturing community, and bring about a complete change iu every manufacturing town of Great Britain. —I am, &c., An East India Broker.—Great Tower-street, City, London.”