A—s

Eighth Day. .-(() April 1907.

Sir WILLIAM LYNE : Does that include minerals ? Mr. ASQUITH: I think so. Mr. DEAKIN : Our wool and ores are taken to Germany to be smelted. We mine, but unfortunately do not manufacture them. If you take out the wool and the ores, you will find next to nothing left. The German manufacturers are using more wool. Their woollen manufactures are growing. They have a high standing in metallurgy, and take our ores instead of you. Mr. ASQUITH : You could not send all that wool here, could you '. Mr. DEAKIN :We send about 10,000,000/. worth. Formerly that was bought here, or a good deal of it, for them; now they buy direct. Mr. ASQUITH : No doubt it goes direct there. Dr. JAMESON : Your argument would be that you could not send that wool here if the German manufacturers did not come here. Mr. DEAKIN : There is a great deal 1 would like to say on this point, but feel I am saying so much already. Mr. ASQUITH : Not at all. I thought you would not mind my pointing out, in passing, that your total exports to foreign countries have increased from 7,000,000/. to 17,000,000/. Mr. DEAKIN : No doubt; Australia is very dependent at the present stage of its development on the export of raw materials, and these are raw materials. These are not affected by our fiscal policy or by German fiscal policy, because it does not pay them to do it; but if they could deal with our wool and ores as they deal with our meat or any of our manufactured products, none of them would go into Germany. They are taken, at the present time, in order that their manufacturers may be supplied. They turn our wool into cloth, smelt our ores, and manufacture them into machinery, or into pig iron and send it out to us to compete with your iron. Their tariff is framed directly in their own interest. It is to their interest to get wool and ores, and, therefore, they take them. It is not in their own interest to take manufactured goods, and, therefore, they do not take either yours or ours. Mr. ASQUITH : And, as you are largely producers of raw material, you are not injured by the German tariff to that extent Mr. DEAKIN : No, but we are injured in regard to the foods which they decline to take. Mr. ASQUITH : What do they do with your wheat ? Mr. DEAKIN : They take some, but not much. Germany, like France, is still largely an agricultural country.

Pkefekentiai '.Trade.

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