The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 1903 THE TRADER AS WAR MAKER.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXV, Issue 72, 25 March 1903, Page 2

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 1903 THE TRADER AS WAR MAKER.

Combating the theory of commerce, as tho great peacemaker between Latioas, the Saturday Review says: —We have been on the brink of war with Fi-ar.ca over tLe basins of the Nile and Ni£er, we have threatened war to more than one European Power, becuita we insisted on "the open door" in China, wo have had serious fric ion wiih Gemany over the denunciation of treaties dealing especially with tariffs and commerce, to-merrow we may find ouiselvea with a half drawn sword in our hands fating Russia or Germany, or both, because ws disapprove of their commercial policy at Koweit, in Persia or the Eupbiates valley- -and way? because the peace loving trader only desires to make money, and to confer on half civilised peoples the unqualified benefis of cottons made in Manchester, or tngints made in Glasgow, as compared with linens woven in Silesia, or looms constructed at Elberfeld. You may not do evil that good may come lends do tot justify means—do we not all apprave of such obvious truisms in morals and politics—but that you mus'. in the last resort make war that you may secure trade, and prevent otheis from taking it from you, is also a fundamental postulate of modern political science as interpreted by Chamber* of Commerce. The class that most loudly olamouis for the slnrp and swift solution by the sword is the peace loving trader, who cries on you in thß same breath to beat your quick-firing guus into type-setting machines, and vour shrapnel into tea kettles. Let us go a little further. Let us assume that the British empire, in its wisdom, decided to frame a great Zjllverein for the Empire, by which there would be frte trade within the mighty circle, and protection without. . . SuchaZollverein would erect a hostile barrier of tariffs against all non-Britifeh tr&dars; it would cut at the roots of the successful competition by which the German or the American merchant supplan's British products in British matkets; ii would be a hostile ring drawn round India, South Afriw, Canada, Austialia, r.nd perbais Egypt, a ling Lka thai drawn round Madagascar or French ludo-Ohiua, or round Rustia, cr the Ueiinau Empire, or the United States. It would, as a logical necessity, involve cbe re-enactment of the k'avigatkm Laws, and would probably involve th policy so prettily worked oui by Germany today of elaborate State su'r-ei-diej and assistance from the railways tu the Home exporter to the disadvantage of the foreign importer. And what would be the result ? Well, no one should be surprised if the nationthus grievously affected, thus shut out from their most lucrative markets, satd openly, "This you shall not do, acd if you do we shall fight you." In other words, tho possible, perhaps the probable, risulr. of a logical commercial policy of that Kind, a pure!\ -lomestk affair of the British Empire carried: ' through in the interests of the peace-1

loving nation of shopkeepers, might be to burl that Empire into a conflict; as of Armageddon. I ■„■■ ,„.,