UNITED POLICY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 57, 7 March 1936, Page 12

UNITED POLICY.

NATIONS OF EMPIRE.

CONFERENCE URGED

ACTION FOR THE FUTURE.

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.)

WELLINGTON", Friday.

The belief that at the present critical juncture there should be a round-table conference among representatives of the various parts of the British Commonwealth of Nations to discuss and determine some united course of action both in the economic and the military sense for the future was expressed by the Prime Minister, the Hon. M. J. Savage, in an interview to-day. *

"It should not only be concerned with matters of defence, but should lay down a general policy of development," Mr. Savage said. "At the present time we do not know enough about what Britain is doing, and Britain does not know enough about what -we are doing. That also applies to other parts of the Empire; for instance, we do not know what they are doing in Australia, to any great extent.

"I notice tliat there is a possibility, according- to- a -newspaper report, of British Ministers visiting tlie Dominions. If tliey do come, and come only to express tlieir own ideas about tilings, which may be capsized when they get back, we won't get very far. They should have some authority behind them, and some ideas." Mr. Savage said that as he 6tated onco before, the first line of defence should be population; that did not mean sending people abroad to struggle for themselves, but it meant' a defined policy. When representatives of the British Empire met they should begin at the beginning, and the beginning meant the filling in of empty spaces, not with struggling wage-earners, but with people using the land and developing industries.