BRITISH TRADE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 202, 30 September 1909, Page 2

BRITISH TRADE.

WITH AUSTRALASIA. SLOWLY DECREASING. AN INSIDIOUS RETROGRESSION. By Cable.—Press Association.—Copyrigl Melbourne, September 1!S. The Minister for Trade, in a memorandum dealing with Australian preference to British goods, says:—"Apart altogether from the sentimental considerations of kinship, wc consider that every pound sterling diverted from the Empire's own trade is so much potential energy absolutely wasted. With grave misgiving we find our trade, slowly but surely decreasing, and that more and more each year wc are dependent upon foreign countries. This diversion of employment and profits! of industry cannot be treated as indifferent. It is an insidious retrogression, endangering the welfare of the Empire and contributing to the wealth and prosperity of its competitors."

I Comparing Australia's importations last year with those of 1880 he claims that " Britain's share should have been ten million more had she retained her due proportion. The only explanation is the keen methods of Britain's rivals. So far she has been treated by the manufacturers as a somewhat negligible quantity." He quotes figures to show that Australian preference already to some extent has' benefited British manufacturers and suggests the necessity for a keener Interest on the part of representatives of Rritisli industries in the methods of foreign competitors, and a more familiar acquaintance with Australia's particular requirements; and a full expression of opinion by British manufacturers on the existing preferential tariff. Without mutual interests and mutual trade preference to our own race, foreign competition, he fears, will be a future danger to the power and prosperity of the Empire.