The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE THURSDAY, JULY 17, 1919. PROTECTED INDUSTRY BUBBLE.

Taihape Daily Times, 17 July 1919, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

THURSDAY, JULY 17, 1919. PROTECTED INDUSTRY BUBBLE.

With which is incorporated “The Taihape Post; and Waimarino News.” .

The question of inter-Enrp'ire reci-K procal ltarifl arrangements, commonly referred -to as Colonial Preference, or! Preferential Trade, -assurned a placqi in the front rank of Empire Governments’ deliberations in_the early days - of. the war; ‘lt may be remarked that % policies of this “nature are too often determined upon .wi<?h~out: ..the peoples affected having recerived that» complete ;information -on what they are .'-inrvolved in that they .are7entitled ‘to. -':4f§'l‘a;rii£--Z .pref’er‘e'nee‘»"~is,“7in fact,"ith_e- "lessening? .or. .. increasing of Customs'Eutic's"alrefadyzin ‘e":tistence',' '»'agr'well~=-as‘ the impos~ition't of new duties,‘ to enable one part of. .I;h‘e Empire totrade withuthe other,'to the 'exclusion‘"of' all 1-other countries. 1 Sonieitinieslit is a mutual sarran-gement: ,whereby the parties agree to abandon all export and import duties against all other peoples. Such reciprocal arrangements are by no ’ means novel, they. were advocated by a. Canadian{ l(‘}0V‘€1‘I1lTlG1‘ll', as far back as 18-13, but; lipnot until about 1-896 did Canada. make i lany far-reaching reciprocal agreement twith the Mother Country. Singular‘ [though it may seem, Britain has never I shown any marked desire for prefercn- l _tial tarififs, not even after the remark- { table success in the arrangement with‘ Canada. Britain has stood strongly for lfrce. trade, because her factories and iirou works could compete with any I other part ofthe world, owing to ,her,.. !"co,lnnland of raw materials and plenti-. tful supplies of cheap labour; Britain, was verily the-workshop of .tlle.worlld., ‘United States and German interests, ; however, floiirished -amazingly throughout. the ’British Empire, an<lACanada_ " was commercially slipping away to so lalarrning an extent that both parties i agreed to adopt "a. "tariff of preference, g with a vieW‘to limiting the operations i of foreign trade inf.erl~orpers. How effec- } tive the preferential ‘arrangements were ‘ aredisclosed in the figures relating to iCanada"s imports from Britain from ‘ 1897, when preference came into opertation, to just before the outbreak of war. For many years Canadian im‘ports from Britain had been seriously decreasing until they had "dropped to ‘£1,888,000 free imports, and £4,156,000 dutiable imports. During ten years ‘under preference Canada’s imports in.Cl‘<=aSod, in 1908, to £4,065,000 free

goods, -and to $515,345,000 oat dutiablel imports. Imperial 'Conferen'ces, for I nearly twenty years, have afi’irmed and 1 reaffirmed the principle of preferential trzule between Britain and her DOlllllll-1 ions overseas, believing their a’d‘option would stilnu.late and rfaeilitalte ‘ commercial intercourse, and otherwise strengthen the Empire by promoting the development lof the full resources of every part. thereof. One of the resolutions carried at the Conference urged that in the interests of Britain and her Dominions efforts in favour of British goods and “British shipping” should be supported as far as practicable. The Dominions were expected to have pre~ fcrential entry into Britain for all their respective products. On the face of it, this seems EL perfectly just arrangement, but leaving the face, and sinking well into its operations, What L-do we find? We discover preferential ' trade to be another scheme for exploiting the people for the benefit of cotton trusts, steel trust-st. shipping combines. Peoples enter into agreements to pay more for the manufactured goods turned out by cotton and steel trusts. It is sinisterly claimed that those peoples benefit because what is turned ofl’ their land is given Whatever preference is possible by the other party to the arrangement‘. but. notably, it is the consumer who has to foot. the bill. In other Words, it is another scheme for

swelling the already inhuman volume

of -indirect taxationi The €lll€§ti‘°n of preferential trade is brought under notice by cablegrams received’ during the last few days, adViSing mat Bri' tish and American-ships were Waiting to resume relationship with German)’ when the blockade was raised, as a result of German ratification bf the Peace Treaty. It seems zthlat the determination to ban German trade for all time has gone by the boaTd{_f°T Britain and America, as -well as [all other nations, have an open order to enter into trading relationship as they zihink fit.,; desirable; and; gprofitable. What‘ "progress British and Colonial statesmen, in conference, made tow"s.rds establishing 9. workable preference against enemy trade and manufactures I remains an unknown quantity. :.. It is I not at all likely that labour in Britain For Germany will ever erect 50 frightful a trade superstructure again as that built up before the war upon their cheap labour. In ~.thaTt scheme was seen the grossest robbery and indecent ostentation on one side, and death, privativon, suffering, starvation on the other. Labour is not likely, after its latest experience, to'be- lured into instituting and -increasing protcctive duties and preferential tarifl:'s; wliat they have learned about the shipping rings, steel trusts, cotton trusts, woollen trade robberies, Scourges they helped to build up by being forced to pay taxation tlo furnish huge sums in the shape of‘ protective duty, will-for ever deter them from consenting to the perpetuationof such indirect, secret methods of exploitar.,_tion. Men engaged on the land, find -land, sheep,/ labour, appliances, buildings, and are forced to sell their wool at fifteenpence a pound to the New Zealand protected woollen mills. After these mills have woven it into singlets and pants, they refuse to let the farmer get his wool back unless he pays "them over twenty shillings a pound for it. It goes ffom fifteenpence to twenty shillings after it gets into the mills;\ that the people pay heavy taxes to; keep in existence to fleece ‘them. A )s,e't. of woollen pants and singlets‘, made‘ ‘iii’: New Zealaifd protected woollen“ ”_z'_nill, weighing’ exactly /twenty ‘ounces V)-’—onie:_ p:b'i'lifldi' pa-ijuarter’—'-cannot ndvmsd toiigirt‘ under" thirty"-".s’hillings this" is? narrate gfiésswbrk; lnorli-approni-"mate estimation, it is the’ plain'state_ment of a pul"c‘lias'e"‘o’f ;t.lie:"articles menI tioned. ‘a Will _ the producing ‘community, the trading icommttity, or"th‘e'nlas’ses" of the people ever’again' consent to Lfoster such hideous _profiteering by [paying special taxaftio-n for the upkeep [of such robbery? I7t_is in the environs riof these taxation-built-up trusts that the greatest deprivation and want’ has been discovered‘-"‘in ‘all countries; where ‘in the worst of _rookeries, the most § degrading vices’; and crime flourish. In ‘this God’s Own Country there is a. scandal in connection with the decent ‘housing of girl and woman cheap { labour, and what shiloguld be the duty of GoVfo_ljllnlol,lfciisibeinglleft for the Young Wo_lrlen _’s' fChrist.ian_ Association. in iwellington to ,_p‘e'rf,orm.’ i_'Where'is our boasted’ civilisation? What has -become -‘of“British‘ho.no.uri?'Wliere do we see "’the_. muclr-flauntcd British fair play‘? Islit not a fact that producers and people have nursed the Trust Viper until they are on the verge of destruction by its blood-sucking? Farmers sell their wool to these trusts at fifteen'pencc and pay twenty shillings to get ‘it back. These same trust parasites have increased the cost of food and clothing until farmers cannot get ilabour at a cost commensurate with its ‘earnings. The farmer pays labour to ‘produce wool at fifteenpenco, and that same labour has to pay twenty shililings to get that pound of wool Yfi'zi'Elc inlto clothing, and yet farmers 'a‘n,'d labourers go on paying taxation to enable such hideous profiteering to continue. At a loss to know how to increase indirect taxation without arousing the suspicions of producers and labour, trust magnates intn'o»duce.d a new name and called it preferential tariff iiuties. All sections of people want the pronouncement of Mr Massey and Sir Joseph Ward on this aspect of the peace arrangements, the protecfed steel magnates, as well as the exploitcrl producers and labour.