Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-10-05
PROPOSALS ON TRADE
WILL AFFECT WORLD
Britain, Caught in Economic Blizzard,
Proposes Plan for Empire of Far
Reaching Importance.
CONTINUED From Third Page.)

has developed an open mind upon pro-
lection. But he also knows that pro-
lection program is political high ex'
plosive.
No one can tell how that bomb is tt
20 of.
It blew Baldwin sky-high once. II
broke the heart Of the first great tariff
: reformer, 10 Chamberlain, mentally g
generation before his time. 1t has split
the Tory party into the BeaverbrooR
and Baldwin factions. And it may split
the party from which Macdonald de-
fives power between the Snowden free
trade group and the Oswald MoSley-
Jim Thomas tariff group, squeezing the
Old Man in the big crack. In this
dilemma Macdonald hopes the imperial
conference will solve his purely political
problem
If the young men from overseas re-
9use to cooperate in this grandioSe
scheme for empire free trade he car
announce to the watching, hesitant
island people that the whole thing is
. chimera, because it requires the do
ininions' CO. operation to pull it down
70 earth ana the dominionS refuse to
pull After which he will be free to
bargain with Lloyd George for the in
PRODUCTION of some huge national works
scheme, backed by a staggering loan
the problem of repayment being left
for some future generation to solve,
along with the incredible war and ma
tional debts and some trifiing local
loans aggregating perhaps $5,000,o00,-
900.
But If, on the other hand, the do
nninions' men see advantage for their
own branches of the family in closer
economic cooperation and more sys-
tematic swapping of goods, money and
services, then Macdonald can adopt a
protective policy camouf1aged under
those resounding phrases at which he
u an adept.
Tariffs Held Not Protective.
The existing tariffs, at that, are not
protection" There are the McKenna
duties. But they are only clapped on
q line of foreign products "for revenue
purposes" There are the safeguarding
duties. They're not protection. They
safeguard infant national industries
Then there is already good list of i'm
perial preferences. They look to the
competing foreigner like protection.
around him that they're nothing Of
the sort.
This new protection, if 1t comes, will
not be referred to bluntly as protection.
It will be sentimentalized under some
term capitalizing the good will already
created by Beaverbrook and his allies
for a march forward of the imperial
tribe shoulder to shoulder against the
rest Of the world in the great battle
for markets.
No one expects, anyway, to see the
whole scheme Of free trade within the
empire and a tariff wall thrown up
American-fashion against the foreigner,
adopted as it stands. There are some
important economic arguments against
1t as an immediate whole hog propo-
Sition.
The main argument is that Britain
cannot overnight pull her roots out of
foreign trade and transplant them in
bunch in interempire trade. Foreign
trade is essential to her. She cannot
live on her own imperial fat-yet.
Foreign Importation Huge.
Two-thirds Of the goods the United
Kingdom imports to meet the needs of
her 100000 people come from for
eign countries and only one-third
from lands within the British complex
The figureE for the last year were
around $4160, 900 900 of foreign trade
and $1,S20,o0o, 900 of empire trade.
Foreign countries, again, buy more
latest annual figures being around ST.
eS0,000,000 and $1,635, 900, respec-
lively.
Glance at the Argentine. England
has some $4,000, o00,0 900 invested there.
Besides being the biggest foreign market
for British cotton and wooden goods and
railroad material, Argentina is the
largest individual seller of raw material
to England, and the third biggest buyer
OF British merchandise. England could
not transfer her meat and wheat bust
ness from Argentina to Australia and
Canada without dislocating an iApor-
tant part Of her trade machinery losing
good business friends and narrowing
the basis. Of her overseas trade.
These are the sort Of considerations
which help to make the Baldwin section
Of the Tory party fight shy Of the COM
plete Beaverbrook empire free trade
scheme. They cannot see how any
British government can safely discrim-
mate against foreign goods all along
the line just yet.
Besides, the British have been great
investors abroad. Their income from
foreign investments (put by one of the
chief bankers at an aggregate Of S15,-
900 ,o00, o0o) alone saves them from
having debit balance at the end of
each year.
Imports Exceed Exports.
1ne LEuIl 10, II England Regarded
herself purely as a factory, relying on
goods purchased and sold, she would
have gone broke quarter Of century
ago. Every year her ministry of COM
merce figures show an excess Of imports
over exports of from $500, 900 900 to
81 500 900 900. The balance is made up
usually with something handsome to
spare, by the income earned by services
services of shipowners, merchants,
bankers-and by the dividend on for
eign investment, which may bring in
yearly anything from $500,000,o00 to
$1,000, 000, 900. The United States alone
according TO her Department of Com
merce, pays the British merchant ma
rine about s150,000, 900 annually in
ocean freights and passages.
From which it will be seen that the
industrial scene, although magnified by
its predominant political significance. is
by no means the whole Of the British
picture.
But the empire free traders wave
these arguments aside, oppose counter
arguments which have convinced some
Of the hardest-headed men on the is
land, and necessarily point out that all
the old factors are changing, that al
this foreign trade is going into a de-
cline as the world completes it's mys-
terious postwar metamorphosis, and
that only by intensive interempire de-
velopment can the dominions maintain
their high standard Of living and the
British people achieve that glittering
prosperity which has dazzled them in
America.
At that, bankers industrielists and
those statesmen who see beyond the
island coasts have long been aware that
Englandis foreign trade is slipping
and slipping in a world where the in
dustrialized community which stops ex-
panding does not remain stabilized, but
inevitably falls back.
Varied Reasons Assigned.
The reasons are varied: Crushing