EMPIRE SOLIDARITY

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XLIII, Issue 9828, 22 March 1923, Page 5

EMPIRE SOLIDARITY

TRADE AND COMMERCE. DOMINIONS’ CO-OPERATION. FAR-REACHING PROPOSALS. (.Pei Press Association, Copyright.) LONDON, March 21.

Lord Strathspey, in the House of Lords, asked the Government to take steps to consult the Dominions for the purpose of shaping definite proposals for Empire consolidation. The Empire, he said, offered unrivalled opportunities for trade and commerce, but successive Governments had not taken advantage of the opportunities. The reason 1 was that they did not sufficiently trust the Dominions. At present the Dominions were simply told that a war had broken out, and were expected to contribute blood and treasure. He advocated reciprocal trading, and suggested that, the High Commissioners should occupy seats in the House of Lords with Dominion titles. If matters were allowed to continue as at present, it was an open question whether, in two generations, there would be any Empire left. What the clans had been to Scotland, so the > Dominions were to England. If Britain mixed itself up with “negroes and dagoes and the riffraff of the world” instead of its own class, the latter would look elsewhere. The Duke of Devonshire, Secretary of State for the Colonies, said the present Parliament contained a stronger representation than any previous one of those who had been privileged to participate in the affairs of the great Dominions. The Government was considering far-reaching proposals for the improvement of trade, which he believed would lead to a great development of the Empire’s resources. He hoped within a few months to be privileged to welcome the Dominions’ repesentatives to England, where a comprehensive programme would be placed before them.

[Lord Strathspey is the heir presumptive to the Earldom of Seafield. He is the second son of the 10th Earl of Seafield who died in 1888, six months after his succession. The title is at present held by special remainder by Nina, Countess of Seafield (bom 1906), daughter of the 11th Earl, who was born in 1876 and died of wounds received in action in 1915. Lord Strathspey (Trevor Ogilvie-Grant of Grant), who married, in 1905, Alice Louisa, a daughter of the late Mr T. Hardy - Johnston, of Christchurch, and has one son and one daughter, was educated at the Waitaki High School and St. John’s College, Auckland and was in the New Zealand Civil Service from 1906 till 1913. He was a lieutenant in the New Zealand Naval Artillery Volunteers, 1898-1900. Lord Strathspey was bom at (ternary on March 2, 1879, and his heir, the Master of Grant, was horn on March 18, 1912.3

PREPARING THE AGENDA. DOMINIONS TO BE HEARD. (Received This Day, 9.45 a.m.) LONDON, March 20. Mr Sonar Law, replying in the Commons, said he hoped the list of subject included in the agenda of the Economic Conference would be settled in consultation with the dominion governments in time to allow of their discussion by the interests concerned in various parts of the Empire before the conference met. The President of the Board of Trade had already intimated on behalf of the Imperial Government that when the arrangements were settled he would proceed to consult the representatives of commerce aqd industry in England. It was contemplated the conference would include representation of the colonies and protectorates, but the form of that representation was not yet settled.