FREETRADE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9161, 7 August 1908, Page 5

FREETRADE.

MR ASQUITH'S VIEWS

Received August 6, 8.10 a.m. LONDON, August 5. The Prime Minister (Right Hon, H. 11. Asquith) speaking at the Cobden Club banquet at the Hotel Cecil, insisted that Freetrade was an economic necessity for Britain, owing to her inability to produce at Home, even under shelter of the highest and most insuperable tariff Protection could design, either food for her people or raw material for her industries. "We can only maintain our industries and find employment for our people," said the Premier, "by receiving gouda frotn foreigners, and sending in exchange our own." Mr Asquith emphasised that absolute Freetrade already prevailed over a large part of the industrial globe, citing the United States, where over three million square miles internal Protection was an impossibility.

GROWTH OF WOOL IMPORTS

INJURY BY HOSTILE TARIFFS

Received August 6, 8.15 a.m. LONDON, August 5. Referring to our enormous dependence on foreign sources for a food supply, Mr Asquith stated that our net imports of raw wool increased in fifty year 3 from ninety million pounns avoirdupois to over three hundred and fifty millions. The Premier admitted that the tariffs of Protectionist countries inflicted substantial injury on the British trade, but said the best weapon with which to fight such tariffs was free imports , He ridiculed the idea of the impendi'ig'bankruptcy of Freetrade finance. Personally, he saw no cause for counsels of despair. On the contrary, he felt confident that Freetrade finance was capable of bearing the strain of any reasonable programme of social reform. On the international side, Mr Asquith declared, Freetrade was bound up with peace and friendship among peoples. M. Yves Guyot, the well-known French political writer and ex Minister, declared that England was teaching the nations a great lesson, tie was confident that the Enjlish would resist the attractions of Mr Chamberlain's programme.