THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, JULY 29, 1909. PREFERENTIAL TRADING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9554, 29 July 1909, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, JULY 29, 1909. PREFERENTIAL TRADING.

Bradford is the centre of the British wool trade, and as such is in closo communication with all wool-pro-ducing countries. That its Chamber of Commerce has decided in favour of preferential trading, even though by a small majority, is the most noteworthy of all recent evidences of the growing popularity of fiscal reform. For it shows that although the teachings and traditions of two generations are in favour of the free trade dogma that a country can only prosper by buying in the cheapest and selling I in the dearest market, the commercial feeling in the great woollen centre has turned decisively in favour of preference. The Bradford nurchants and manufacturers are coming to the conclusion that it is to tfuir interest to prefer New Zealand, South African, and Australian wools to Argentinan wools, provided that their manufactured goods have preference against French, German, and American woollens. Owina- to the -closeness of the voting, the Bradford representative will be neutral on the question at the approaching Sydney Chambers of Commerce Conference, but the position being assumed by the woollen trade is none the less manifest. We may even see the cotton trade, to which Free Trade owes its great strength drawn to the same conclusion, for nothing is more certain than that Free Trade wasf adopted because it promised to be profitable, and that it will be dropped when it plainly ceases to be profitable.