OUR FOREIGN TRADE [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—I have been amazed by the letter which appears in the correspondence columns of your last number above the name of the M.P. for East Dorset. The Spectator is informed that Australia is a staunch and hearty. customer of the. Mother Country. It is strange that a country which imposes a sixty per cent. tariff on all British goods, as well as foreign, should be compared to Denmark, which is an entirely Free Trade country with a (natural) strong commercial connexion with Great Britain. Why we should be expected to damage our .owa trade by tariffs in order to favour a commercially antagonistie state at the expense of one which imposes no trade barriers seems beyond all explanation.
Finally, it might interest Mr. Hall Caine to learn that, as a result of the Abnormal Imports Act, which he no doubt wel- comes as a step in the. proper Protectionist direction, the vigorous campaign for increased imports from Great Britain which had been organized by the Danish Export Company has been completely suspended. go successful had this campaign in fact been that the regular steamship line from Great Britain to Denmark had been unable to cope with the increased traffic. Now this has come to a complete standstill, and great harm has been done both to the prosperity of Denmark and Great Britain. What a triumph for economic nationalism !—I am,
Previous page
