FOR FREE TRADE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 670, 23 May 1929, Page 6

FOR FREE TRADE

UNANIMOUS SUPPORT PREFERENCE IN N.Z. On the question of free trade within the Empire, the conference unanimously approved of the principle. JT carried a remit from the Bay of Islands to the effect that Empire free trade was an essential step toward the preservation of the unity of the Empire, and that negotiations should be begun with Britain. Mr. A. E. Harding said there was today a world-wide movement for free trade and forces were gathering to advocate this cause. The “leading lights” of commerce were keen to establish the system universally, and he considered that the heavy cloud under which free trade was now obscured was merely the darkness before the dawn. Only by the free interchange of commodities —the production of which Providence had arranged —could the happiness of the world be assured. He believed that a body of sound scientific men could bring the advantages of free trade before the world with such emphasis that its universal adoption would be made comparatively easy. IN AUSTRALIA At one time the Australian States were divided into watertight compartments, but by hoisting the banner ' free trade, Sir Henry Parkes had broken down this barrier and made clear the way for tne Commonwealth. When free trade was established in New South Wales it brought, not chaos, but the birth of progress which eventually eclipsed the former progressive greatness of Melbourne. Mr. S. Petrie, Marohemo, considered that the preferential tariff against Britain was nothing more than an interfering factor with primary enterprise. He asked the conference not to overlook the fact that ships taking cargo from New Zealand could carry it more cheaply if they were assured of a cargo from England to this side of the world, BUSINESS VIEWS Mr. Hudson, ex-president of the Chamber of Commerce, addressed the conference at the invitation of delegates, and said that Great Britain’s primary income was from the export of manufactured goods. This could :aot be done well in trading in a tariffridden world, and hostile markets all round her. Unless the cost of production were brought down to bedrock, our industrial competitors would “get all over us”; but if the goods could be supplied upon a competitive basis, the general welfare would be better served. New Zealand was paying a huge sum in taxation to assist certain industries, and every now and again the tariff had to be raised to enable them to carry on. Wages were rising steadily and tariffs were asked for to rise in sympathy and keep the industries going, NO PROTECTION Captain Colbeck reaffirmed his belief that protection did not benefit even the man who was protected. 11l New South Wales, under free trade, more people were engaged in secondary industries than in Victoria, under tariff. Protection actually caused wages to rise, and not vice versa, he maintained. To talk of mass production in New Zealand was preposterous, he considered. Most of the industries were obviously in their beginnings. “The waste of money in New Zealand industries Is astounding,” Captain Colbeck went on, in explaining that certain cloth manufacturing factories In England made nothing but one-coloured cloth on account of overhead costs. It would cost £2,000 or more to change the looms and dye works over to any other colour. “Yet in New Zealand,” he said, “you have Mosgiel and these places making every colour and every class of stuff under the sun. It is a preposterous waste of money.” Mr. A. F. Giles, in reply, said lie had refused to change the remit from “free trade” to “preference.” A request for this had been made. An extraordinary was running through New Zealand that free trade was an experiment and that preference was a perfectly ordinary state of affairs. This, of coarse, was a ridiculous notion. The Dominion should rid itself of preference. The remit was carried unanimously.