COMMONWEALTH TARIFF.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 16 September 1907, Page 2

COMMONWEALTH TARIFF.

THE PREFERENCE CLAUSES. BRITISH PRESS UNAPPRECUTI?E. Lonjdon, September 13. The Times publishes tha more flaw ■ portant sections of the .CoramonwealEft tariff. The journal contends that the general effect of the tariff is. in a direction which, means detriment, to British trade. It can only hope that British goods, though the advantage they receive compared with foreign goods is in many cases almost derisory, may ba sufficiently in demand to .prevent the volume of the Motherland's Australian trade undergoing appreciable diminution. The Daily Chronicle, commenting on Mr Deakin's resolve to adhere to preference for Great Britain, says: "\fo are afraid his firm stand will not excite the Motherland's grateful admiration. In commerce principle counts for less than interest. The tariff hits the interests of British manufacturers very hari Nevertheless, in justice to Mr Deakui; it must be said that, if Australia is in. ' deed resolved on a high tariff all rouha", —if, in other words, the only choice is between the proposed high tariff witb preference and the same thing without it—Mr Deakin's stand mav call for gratitude in some infinitesimal degree." Since the alight remissions accorded to Britain are clearly not within the scope of substantial preferential treatment, the Pall Mall Gazette concludes that Australian feeling has been piqued by British Ministers, whose militant and contemptuous rhetoric proved too insistent to enable Mr Domkin to give full effect to the policy the Gazette foreshadowed. The Wcsflminster Gazette admits that the tariff ••would have created a worse impression if no preference had been conceded. -