GLOOMY VIEW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 259, 1 November 1932, Page 7

GLOOMY VIEW.

Little of Value to Canada from

Ottawa Agreements

OPPOSITION ARGUMENTS,

MONTREAL, October 31

"The Liberal party sees little of value, either to Canada or Britain, in the Ottawa agreement, and will continue to stand against it," said the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. W. L. Mackenzie King, in an address to members of the Reform Club at Montreal. He condemned the tariff policy upon which the agreement was based, and said he eaw in the arrangement a source of future irritation between Britain and Canada.

Mr. King charged the Prime Minister, Mr. R. B. Bennett, with having forfeited the independence of the Canadian Parliament. He declared that the Economic Conference had hardly begun before hard bargaining vvae noticeable on all sides.

Relations between the several parts of the Empire had hardly been more strained in the last 100 yeare than they became with the nego'tiating of the Ottawa agreements. This could have been avoided if the delegates had met in a proper spirit to bring about freer trade.

The conference should have set an example to the world so that greater freedom of trade would take place. had been reached which it Was sought to make binding on the Empire Parliaments before those Parliaments had had an opportunity of passing an opinion upon them. The conference was based on the theory of bargaining, to see how each might come out best for himself.