HOPES OF FREE TRADE

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1078, 16 September 1930, Page 9

HOPES OF FREE TRADE

LOWER TARIFF BARRIERS SOUGHT IN BRITAIN ADDRESS AT GENEVA British Official Wireless RUGBY, Sundaj'. The President of the Board of Trade, Mr. William Graham, in the course of his speech at the League of Nations Assembly at Geneva yesterday on the tariff truce question, urged the need for economic disarmament and a cessation of tariff warfare. “We have to sound an international note in economic relations,’’ he said. Referring to the world-wide trade depression, Mr. Graham said the danger of the moment was that all nations in these economic straits turned forthwith to the protection of j their own industries as the remedy. ! The lessons of the world conference i of 1927, Which was called not indeed for free trade but for freer trade, were 1 forgotten. Politicians had yielded to the insistent demands of industry and commerce for protection. TARIFF TRUCE Although a tariff truce conference was held early this year the agreement which resulted from it fell far short of the hopes of those who had advocated the conference most warmly. Nevertheless the convention pledging the signatories against any 1 increase in their tariffs before April, j 1931, had its value and the British | Government had decided to ratify it. More important, however, were the coming negotiations aiming at general tariff reductions which would have j begun in the early autumn and would it was hoped, yield results early next year. All this, Mr. Graham maintained, : was part of the dominating problem of I world restoration.