THE EMPIRE.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18347, 2 April 1925, Page 9

THE EMPIRE.

DEVELOPMENT OF UNITS. SETTLERS AND FINANCE. 'TicSTIII!UV P ",v SS association-copyright.) (ai-s lia.n a " d * z - cable association.) (Received April Ist, 7.15 •LONDON", April 1, Overseas Banks' Assooiation, witJi thirty-five member banks whose aggregate paid-up capital totals ovf-r £80.000,000. held their anm.al dinner at the Hyde Park Hotel, when there was a large attendance, including v ir James Allen and the Hon. W. Pembcr Beeves. Mr \\. G.- A. Ormsby-Corc, UnderSecretary tor the Colonies, said we in Great Britain were more and more realising, however important foreign trade might !be, that the real solution ot' many of our problems depended almost entirely on the development of the Empire. In this work the Dominion and colonial banks were .bound to take an ever-increasing rsharo and responsibility. The problem of our generation was one of not merely increasing the total value of production throughout the .Empire, but also of how to apply tho savings and credit of tho more developed portions of tho Empire to the development of the less developed portions. The problem of Australian development was not merely one of migration, it was also a problem of finance. Happily the sigjis there wcro most encouraging, and in the Protectorates gonerally, but ho must say ho had seen signs -of lack of enterprise in East Africa, where lie found that the Germans and Japanese ware back again and pushing ahead of British firms.

Sir R. S. Horne said, ho had come to tho deliberate opinion that we were in a worse position to-day than six months ago, when it was bad enoughs If they looked at the staple traded they could not lielp feeling anxiety and apprehension. There was no hope unless every section of the community combined in order to find a solution. Sir Herbert Hambling said tho position was bad, but not quite so bad as Sir R. S. Horne apparently thought.