RISING TARIFF WALLS

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1058, 23 August 1930, Page 11

RISING TARIFF WALLS

A CANADIAN VIEWPOINT “EMPIRE SHOULD UNITE’’ In view of! the recent more or less retaliatory increase in tariffs against Canada made by the New Zealand Government, it is interesting to note the Canadian business man’s opinions of tariffs in general when placed against his interests. The recent advances ifi U.S.A were a case to the point. Mr. J. 11. Woods, president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, has told American business men that they will lose heavily when the new United States tariff comes into full operation anil that the losses will be increased ultimately as the result of a permanent change in direction of trade. After saying that Canada would be hit immediately in her trade with the United States to the extent of about 75,000.000 dollars (£15,000.000) annually by the new American tariff, Mr. Woods prophesied that if such a programme continued there was nothing left for Great Britain and her Dominions to do butt to form an Empire Economic Union in order “to make them as far as possible independent of the tariff enactments of other countries.” No American business man can ignore that stjUement. The British Empire was doing more than one-fourth of the world trade in 1913. But it had -9.48 per cent, in 1927. The share of the United States in world trade was 11.17 per cent, in 1923. and 11.21 per cent, in 1927. “World trade of the British Empire in 1927,” said Mr. Woods, “was more than twice that of the United States, and greater than half of all of northern and western Europe combined.” If the British “Commonwealth of Nations” in the next decade or so can tio itself effectively into a working economic unit it will mean a lot more than just talk to American business men The New York correspondent of the “Manchester Guardian ’Weekly” states that the new United States tariff is the most unpopular for at least one hundred years, if not in all American history. The measure as a whole has hardly any single friend anywhere and was passed as the result of an orgy of “log-rolling,” each senator or representative getting protection for the products of his own State and in return voting for similar protection for industries represented by his colleagues.