CABLE NEWS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXV, Issue 207, 17 September 1903, Page 3

CABLE NEWS

** SHOTBia SUBGRAPH—OOPXHI3HJ, FISCAL UNITY. WISH AbVIOE. MB press association. London, September 15. Tho Standard deprecates any Ministerial resignatioEs and declares them t j be ceadless and unnecessary, inasmuch aa measures to meet the unfair damping of foieign products in Great Britain are not an attack on free trade, while the increasingly critical foreign ntuation and the urgency of army reform demand the energies of a strong united Cabinet. It tdds that the question of preferential tariff does not press for immtdi*sß solution. Meanwhile Ministers cannot act loyally together in Council if conducting a campaign against one another in the contf tuencies. It gives warning of the risk of re-opening the breach and precipitating a formidable secession and revolt. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, replying to an Irish correspondent, declared he eould not imagine how the fiscal proposals could benefit Irish product aiming as they did at the United Kingdom's food supplies coming, not from Homo sources, but from the colonies.

MB BALFOU v '3 NOTES ON INSULAR FRBE TRADE, Received 17, 0.15 a.m. London, September 16. As a prelude to his speech at Sheffield on October Ist, Mr Balfour's notes thereon were circulated amongst his colleagues at the beginning of August, and haye sine* been published in a 32 page pamphlet entitled "Economic notes on insular free trade." He approaches the subj°ct from a free trade standpoint, but objects to a rigid classification of the world into protectionists and free traders. A co'liiion, he lay*, is possible between fee trade and the larger issues. Free trade is a perfeot system for an ideal world wherein capital and labour flow freely to places where profits are greatest and wages highest, but labour is not fluid ■nd capital viscous. Nations, as we knew them economically, are possible only because for various reasons, mankind is both unable and unwilling to turn the natural resources of the world to the best economic account. Recognising the general truth that there is no pre-established harmony between the economic world's Interests and the national well being, w» must accept, provisionally, the v : ew that the character of our fiscal policy should vary according to varying cireumstances. The fight whicb, as far as Britain is concerned, ended in 1846, was a fight over an economic theory, and between two opposing ideals supported by rival interests. Th« question in 1846 was whether SDglond was to become a mere manufacturing or an agricultural country, and maintain, at whatever costs, her ancient predominance. The country rightly decided in favour of the first alternative, bus this T7as only realisable on two conditions, the first being that as luxuries and necessaries must be imported, large •sports weie necessary to pay them; and the second that sufficient capital was always forthcoming at ■Home for investment to provide employment for the growing urban papulation. The reformers commitced two mistakes. They failed to fully see the world's rejection of free trade, and did not reckon the probabilities of the Empire. Hid they given us Imperial free trade, t>ie protective tendencies of foreigners would be cf secondary importune. He next discussed whether the fiscal tJMim suited to a free trade nation in • world of freetraders remains suited in every detail to a free trade nation in a world of protectionists. We must oonsider, mot what is, but what is to be. Then is a possibility in many directions of losing free trade territories, and the absence of the probability of gaining that. Excluding coal and machinery, he argues tbat the diminution of our exports is not merely relative but absolute. Their rate of increase as a whole has seriously diminished.

Discussing foreign trusts aiming at J ft# full employment of plant and the groatoct economy of production with a *»ew of obtaining a footing in foreign markets, he shows that protection provides an assured basis of the Home market whereon to work. Why a similar policy should not fee open to the manufacturer of a free trade country is beoause free trade makes it difficult for him to obtain the control of the Home markets, without which he is unable to fix a low foreign and a high domestic price. Mr Bilfonr says Britain is unable to Moore the concession towards freer exchange except by appealing to R»lf Interest, or, in the case of tha colonies, to self interest and sentiment com bined. It is imperative that Britain should recover- h*r liberty to do to foreign nations what they do to each other, and not to appeal to theories they wholly d sbelieve, but to the case of fiwal inducements they thoroughly understand.