DOMINION INDUSTRIES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 902, 20 February 1930, Page 11

DOMINION INDUSTRIES

ECONOMIC COMMITTEE’S COMMENT FOREIGN IMPORT REGRETTABLE LONDON, Thursday. The first contribution of the Federation of British Industries to the Preparatory Economic Committee, formed with a view to the Imperial Conference, consists of a lengthy report containing a great number of recommendations. These include the establishment of a permanent secretariat, the establishment of machinery to cope with Empire economic problems, similar to the Geneva Economic Conference, rationalisation of Imperial industrial production, and a closer technical liaison between British and Dominion industries. The existing British preference, it. says, should be undisturbed. The federation considers that free trade for Britain and protection for the Dominions is unthinkable. Imperial free trade may eventually be possible, but other and more practical steps are required for the immediate future. The federation is of opinion that the Dominions should refrain from developing economically unsound industries. It is a fatal error to suppose that the Dominions will allow British unemployed persons to be dumped on them. The report calls attention to the great absox-ptive powers of the Dominions, and says it is all the xhore regrettable that they increasingly draw their imports from foreign sources.