WORDY CONFLICT

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 286, 3 December 1930, Page 7

WORDY CONFLICT

CANADIAN'S PROTEST. Bennett's Preference Proposal Dubbed Humbug. THOMAS HOTLY ASSAILED. (United P.A.—Electric Telegraph—Copyrights LOXDON, December 2. The Prime Minister of Canada, Mr. R. B. Bennett, has made a statement regarding the remarks made by the Secretary of State for the Dominions, Mr. J. H. Thomas, ■in the course of his speech on-the motion of censure in the House of Commons, on November. 27, in which he referred to Mr. Bennett's offer regarding preference as "humbug." Mr. Bennett says: "Mr. Thomas has condemned beyond the possibility of further discussion,'in. language 'deeply resented by the Government of Canada", the proposal I made \in a sincere desire to meet our individual and common needs. . "Mr,, Thoma,s used terms as unusual as they are injurious to the , proposal which, we believe, ■ „—. n contains the best' solution of the urgent problem of closer economic association in. the Empire. "I have refrained' from making an. earlier . allusion to the speech, in the hop© and expecta--1 tiori that • the far-- £ reaching' cons e-. • quences -which must inevitably . attach ■to the statement would have compelled its denunciation by the British Government, whose failure to do so must be construed as an endorsement of it." Mr. Bennett emphasises the fact thajj, the delegates to the conference separated in the earnest desire and hop© that the Ottawa conference would bring about the discovery of some means which would be acceptable to all for Empire economic association. '|Mr. Thomas," he says, "must be taken to have condemned also a principle which all the Dominions approved,: a specific illustration of which was ad-J| vanced to remove g the debates from 1 purposeless and unprofitable generalities. Mr. Thomas condemned it,' in spite of the resolutions 'which the conference passed, in spite of his own Government's statement of policy, in mim sm»>#i««'*m~-*»<~*\ spite of the fact that the conference had not seriously; discussed either the'principle of preferences or my plans to make them operative. "Mr. Thomas also condemned it without offering a positive alternative.proposal. "I regret to have to refer to his statement, but have no other course, in justice to Canada and the cause of Empire economic unity, for,, if the statement indicates the British attitude at Ottawa, I have little hope that any agreement which Canada may l'eaeh with the other Dominions will include the United Kingdom. "Time is running, against* us. If Canada's proposal is to be thus contemptuously rejected, tlie Canadians can only embrace otHer means that are at hand of further strengthening their economic position."