Canada and the Soviets • It is instructive to note
that the Aluminium Company of Canada has contracted to supply the Russian Govern- ment with its products in return for Russian oil to the value of, £200,000 a year. There is no sound reason why it should not do so, even if Trinidad, which has hitherto supplied the oil, is aggrieved at the loss of custom. But we find it hard to reconcile this transaction with Canada's impassioned demand, at the recent Ottawa Conference, that England should cease to buy Russia's "dumped "—or, in other wards, cheap— exports of timber and wheat. If it is right for Canada to make a profitable deal in oil with Russia, when she might buy the oil from a British colony, it must be right for us to buy Russian timber which our merchants have known for generations. If trade within the Empire is really to be guided by Imperial sentiment and nothing. else, Canada and every other party to the Ottawa -agreements will have to repress the desire to buy in' the cheapest market, whether the British flag waves over it or not. Mr. Bennett's defence of the Canadian Aluminium Company's bargain should be interesting.
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