The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND THURSDAY, JUDY 4, 1929 THREAT OF TRADE WAR

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 706, 4 July 1929, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND THURSDAY, JUDY 4, 1929 THREAT OF TRADE WAR

'THERE is serious and widespread talk of a keen trade war soon * between British countries and the United States. America’s new aggressive tariff measure, which awaits the final approval of Congress, has provoked a mood of retaliation in Canada, where experts are making a careful study of a menacing situation and. under administrative instructions, obviously are preparing tariff reprisals. It has been stated credibly in Ottawa that adequate steps will be taken by the Dominion Government to counter the thrust from over the border. The prospective conflict will be an interesting test of Imperial British sentiment in North America. Nearer home, the Prime Minister of Australia has issued a Xilain warning to local manufacturers as to the threat of trade war from the United States. Speaking in Sydney yesterday, Mr. Bruce said there was a probability of the wholesale dumping of American goods into British countries in the near future. He weighted his warning with details of America’s power and preparation for flooding the world disastrously with her manufactures. Her power is in the possession of rather more than half of the world’s gold; her preparation, which has been going on for a long time, consists of nearly everything that makes a country formidable in skilled industry. Under a generous system of tariff protection American factories have expanded to an enormous extent. Most of them are run on industrial and business lines admittedly representing the best known methods of scientific management in the world. Stupidity is penalised and starved; ability and individual enterprise are encouraged and rewarded. Wages for first-class workers are frequently higher than the profits of many industrial employers in New Zealand, while the earnings of manufacturers in America keep on making millionaires. And the blight of Socialism among industrial unionists is not bad enough to attract attention. Now, in addition to these great aids to progress, and unrivalled prosperity, America, according to Mr. Bruce, is concentrating on a terrific efficiency campaign. What may be done by British countries to meet America’s aggressive trade warfare? As far as the Dominions are concerned they need not look to Great Britain for a lead. There, the Labour Government intends to abandon the Conservatives’ policy of safeguarding industries, and certainly is determined not to renew what Lord Parmoor, the Labour Lord President of the Council, refers to as “those motor duties.” The Prime Minister of Australia has a plan of campaign in his head, but it may not be easily adopted in a country that suffers severely from all the worst defects of industrial unionism and Labour politics which, as interpreted by a poet, is the condition “Where the individual withers and the State is more and more.” Some people might admire Australian unionists if, for patriotic reasons, they decided for a change, to declare foreign goods “black” and refuse to handle them, but their patriotism usually takes the form of holding up Australian exports. Mr. Bruce, with an exercise of charming faith, believes that Australia, as a good Protectionist country, will know how to deal with people “who try to put it over her.” Possibly, but in the meantime he urges manufacturers to concentrate first on the manufacture of motor-cars. There is vast scope in Australia for the introduction and development of motor-car manufacture. In respect of motor vehicles the Commonwealth now ranks fifth in importance among all countries, though it still is far behind New Zealand in the use of motor-cars in proportion to population, the difference being 65 a thousand to New Zealand’s 104. Today, Australia spends nearly twice as much every year on American ears as it receives in wool-payments from Great Britain. And it imports more motor vehicles from foreign countries than British immigrants. So far. Australia has not manufactured motor-cars, though it has succeeded in establishing an important industry on the assembling of cars and body-building. New Zealand also will be affected by the coming American trade war. Can it be anticipated that the Government and the people will respond to the need of British co-operation against such warfare? Much could be done to meet it. In addition to increasing tariff preference for British goods the public eould, with advantage to themselves, indulge more in Empire shopping. Then a serious and an effective effort should be made to promote expansion of local manufactures, industrial efficiency, and harder work.

SHORTLAND STREET POSI OFFICE

BY the impending removal of the old post office building in Shortland Street, an achitectural landmark of great historic interest will vanish from the city. Its solid, almost forbidding style, relieved by Gothic windows, makes it an object of unusual interest apart altogether from its association with the development of the city during a vital phase of its advancement. Curiously enough, the prospective culmination of the protracted negotiations that will end in the demolition of the building comes only a little time after the destruction of the old wooden cottage that, standing until a few weeks ago at the corner of Princes Street and Eden Crescent, was the surviving shell of the first chief post office, which did business in Princes Street when that now almost secluded thoroughfare was the business heart of the town.

Sentimental ties may be wrenched by the removal of the old Shortland Street office, but this cannot cloud the fact that there has been a great deal of unnecessary delay in the completion of the negotiations between the City Council and the Government. While traffic congestion in Queen Street, and particularly at the lower end, has been increasing in intensity almost month by month, the council brought no vigour at all to its responsibility of securing the Shortland Street block, on which the extension of High Street and the relief of traffic congestion primarily depend. With High Street extended through Shortland Street to Fort Street, a roughly parallel by-pass thoroughfare, to which heavy traffic, at least, can be restricted, will be available all the way from Rutland Street to Customs Street, and the apxiroaehing removal of the railway station to the new terminal will permit this important alternative road to be carried right through to the waterfront. The road to be formed between Shortland Street and Fort Street will be only 40ft wide, which is too narrow to be comfortable in these days of dense traffic. The department, however, insists that a substantial part of its land be retained, partly for sale and partly for the purposes of retaining a post office at this locality. There is room for doubt about the wisdom of the decision to maintain a post office at Shortland Street indefinitely. It is true that the present office serves a large section of the business community, but if a post office must be maintained in the heart of the city, there are many more central sites. The Shortland Street office is too near the main office to give really effective service.