EMPIRE FREE TRADE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 695, 21 June 1929, Page 10

EMPIRE FREE TRADE

BANK DIRECTORS’ OPINION “YET A DREAM’’ The advisability of the New Zealand Government approaching the Imperial authorities as to the possibility of holding an Empire Conference to consider more logical and scientific customs tariff arrangements between the outlying Dominions, the Crown colonies, and the Mother Country, is stressed by the directors of the Bank of New Zealand in their annual report. “If the British Government could see its way to reduce existing dutfes on certain products, and impose small duties on foreign-grown beef, mutton, lamb, fruit, butter, wool, etc., not only would substantial benefits accrue to British farmers, who at present are experiencing a particularly lean time, but Empire settlement would be accelerated, lands now lying idle would be brought into cultivation, unemployment both in the United Kingdom and in the overseas Dominions would be reduced, and emigration from the Old Country stimulated,” state the directors.

“The overseas Dominion are, per head of population, Great Britain’s best customers. In imports of British goods last year, New Zealand stood at the top of the list with £l3 5d 5s a head of the population, followed by the Irish Free State with £ll 17s 7d.

“Universal free interchange of goods would undoubtedly be the ideal condition, but It is apparent that the world is not ready for this ideal condition, for customs tariffs in many foreign countries are gradually hut surel} r being raised—Geneva economic conferences notwithstanding. As a consequence, the trade of the United Kingdom is being so restricted that she will gradually be forced more and more to look to her kith and kin across the seas for the purchase of her manufactured articles, and the surest way to obtain a larger portion of the colonial trade would be by an adjustment of Customs tariffs. “The idea of Great Britain and her dependencies some day merging into one harmonious whole, with never a tariff wall between any of its members, is a dream which in our day and generation at least will not be realised. “Distances are great, and maritime transit sometimes dangerous. It is well, therefore, in the meantime, that the protection of a customs barrier has made the manufacture of necessities a possibility in the outlying Dominions.

“Although free trade between the members is as yet impossible, an intelligent adjustment of Customs tariffs —giving to each separate unit a certain measure of protection against foreign trade competitors—would go far toward making this great community of nations a still more united and prosperous Empire.”