FREETRADE CONGRESS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 195, 7 August 1908, Page 3

FREETRADE CONGRESS.

MIXALN'S fidelity; to free TRADE. AN ECONOMIC".NECESSITY. HO CAUSE FOR DISPAIR, • London, August 0. At toe free-trade Congress speeches were delivered by the American, French «nd German. delegates, congratulating Oreat Britain on her fidelity to freetrade. The keynote to all the speeches w»s tne intimate connection between free-trade and peace, •Thi Pranier (Mr. H. H. Asquith) speaking at the Cobden Uub banquet at the Hotel Cecil, insisted on frceSrade as an economic neceesitv fthi ritain, owing to her inability to produce at Home ,evcn under the shelter of the highest and most insuperable tariffs that protectionists could devise, either food for her people or raw material for her industries. They could •mfloy her people and maintain her iu4wtries only by receiving the goods that foreigners would send in exchange for her own.

Air Asquith emphasised that absolute free-trade already prevailed over a large part of the industrial globe. He cited as an example tue. Umted States, where there was free-trade over an area of three million square miles, internal protection being an impossibility. Inferring to Britain's enormous dc? pendence on foreign sources for her food and raw material supplies, ilr. Asquith Stated that our net imports of raw wool had increased in 50 years from ninety million pounds avoirdupois to over 350 million pounds. He admitted that the tariffs of protectionist countries inflicted substantial injury «n '.British trade, but said the best weapon to fight such tariffs was that of irei<\ imports. He ridiculed the idea of the., impending bankruptcy of free-trade fin-' ance. Personally, he saw no such cause for counsels of despair. On the contrary, he felt confident that freetrade finance was capable of bearing tba Strain of any reasonable programme ot social reform. On the international side, he added, free-trade was bound up with peace and friendship among the peoples. Air. Yves Guyot, the. French political writer, declared that England was teaching the nations a great lesson. He was confident the English people'would i resist the attractions of Mr. Chamberlain's programme. THE COLONIES AND FREETRADE. STRONG CRITICISM. Received 0, 10.15 p.m. i London, August 6. The Freetrade Congress discussed the effect of a freetrade commercial poli-y j upon industrial and agricultural develop- , ment. After listening to the historical t retrospects contributed by represcirta- s tives of Italy, Germany, Holland, Den- t mark, Belgium, France', United States, „ and Britain, Mr. Russell Head, a Com- s matter, said the action of the colonics a had killed any enthusiasm for colonial a preference. The colonies, lie said, .had t given us to understand that, preference t or not, they meant to continue to dc- u velop protectionist tariffs on the nar- |, rawest colonial lines. They showed tiny regarded imperial preference not as giving them an opportunity of advancing in the direction of freetrade within the Empire, but as presenting the occasion for increasing their duties on foreign goods.