The Press Monday, November 17, 1930. The Imperial Conference.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20087, 17 November 1930, Page 10

The Press Monday, November 17, 1930. The Imperial Conference.

i It' the several cable messages describing | the end of the Imperial Conference j suirgest that its achievement has bean ' sligh:, this is largely because so i many newspapers and politicians re- ; garded its business as primarily and almost exclusively economic, and demanded in that sphere large, dear-out results involving on abrupt change in the British Government's policy—not to say the British people's, j This attitude has been unfortunate, ! although it is quire true thet the economic affairs and the economic coj operation of the Empire are of the very : largest importance; and the expectation of great positive result:- and of striki intr policy changes was rash in f very war. It ignored the- disposition >■>£ the Government, m:,ny of the facts or ; British trade, perhaps even the nature i of the Conference itself, which, what- ! ever it luigiit propose or recommend, could decide ar.d settle very little. The Dominion Prime Ministers seem to ' have been quite surprisingly mi.-taken ; in their judgment of what might be arranged out of hand —so surprisingly, Ln fact, that the Daily Telegraph's story about Mr Seullm becomes almost credible. According to that paper's political writer, Mr Scull;n hoped to 1 talk preferences and tariffs with Mr Snowden as one Socialist to ar.othc-r and to "win him over by 'Socialistic endearment. But for a sympathetic hearing he had to turn to the Conservative*. This is a laughable story, whether true or untrue, and if it no longer seems too good to be true, as it nugv.i have

seemed a. few weeks ago, that i.; tr.<I fault of the Dominion delegates v.v.o j have expressed so many naive vi&w.= . ! What they have more completer missed j than anything else is the central fact, j that Great Britain's foreign u-ade is ! too important to be jeopardised; and ! proposals of extended preferences—to say nothing of a straight-out system of protection for the Homo Country—really mean that Great Britain should give the Dominions a large, certain advantage in exchange for an uncertain one, and at the risk of losing heavily in trade outside the Empire. The British Government's final reply to the Dominions, not given until ijjear the end of last week, put this point in the statement that the interests of the United Kingdom " preclude any economic "policy which would injure its foreign " trade." If this is allowed its full weight, it is difficult to Bee what more could have been expected or been done than appears in the news that existing preferences are retained—a '* victory " over Mr Snowden which he probably did not contest as desperately as is suggested—and that the Imperial Eco--1 tiomie Committee and the Empire Marketing Board are to investigate " other " opportunities" of extending the Empire's trade. These are neither scanty nor slight; and the Economic Conference to be held in Canada in a year's time should be fruitful. Unless I there are widespread political changes lin the interval, it should work on ground cleared of the misconceptions that have injured the work of the present Conference. What changes are being made in the Committee and the Board is not quite clear. There is, however, at lea3t one suggestion that the Committee will work in an atmosphere "free from politics," which may mean that its work is to be given largely into the hands of economic experts and researchers. If that is so, then something very like the Empire Economic Secretariat, proposed by the Round Tabic and widely supported, will have been set up; and there are possibilities in the work of such a body quite sui&cient to justify the Conference by its fruits, even if these, its only economic ones, were, as they are not, its only fruits of any kind. Farmers and the Unemployed. The Acting-Prime Minister, according to a message from Dannevirke printed ia The Press to-day, has announced that the Government is about to issue a comprehensive statement regarding' the operation # o£ the Unemployment Act, and that farmers will be able to secure advances from the fund at a very low rate of interest for tho purpose of carrying out with men at present unemployed. This is so interesting that Mr Ransom should lose no time in saying precisely what ths Government's plan is. No one knows better than he does how many farmers there are in the Dominion who simply cannot afford to pay full wages for additional labour even for necessary work. The average farmer is carrying such a heavy load already, in mortgages and other liabilities, that he is not in a position to undertake any further loan obligations until prices rise and the outlook greatly improves. Even farmers with substantial find assured equities would hesitate to accept a loan to bs applied to the payment of wages to additional men, now unemployed, Unices they were satisfied that the Value of the extra production, gauged by the present low level of prices, justified the expenditure and the new liability. | What the farmc-r wants above all else is some reduction in costs, and it is by no means eertairt that labour loans, even at low rates of interest, will help liim much unless it can be assumed that prices will show a healthier relation to costs. The Dominion President of the Farmers' Union mentioned only a few days ago that on the basis of present prices and costs the third-class land of the Dominion, as well as much of the secondclass land, could not be farmed profit-, ably. In other words, many farmers can continue operations only by using up their own capital and credit. These are the men who need help, and if they ftt* going to be assisted out of the Unemployment Fund it will be interesting to be told how and on what terms assistance is to be given. It will not hel]p the farmer or the Dominion if what is proposed is merely an addition to existing liabilities on terms for which there is no security and no capacity to pay.

The Mayor. The -Mayor chooses strange occasions to indulge his hates and carry on his feud= Although his very foolish speech on Friday night was made after the Governor-General had retired —it will be a great relief to all our readers to know this—almost any other Mavor in the Empire, in the position in which Mr Archer was placed, would have felt, first that he should r.oi obtrude himself fit all. and _in the second place that he snould a.oid kind of unpleasantness. Fa en 11 ne happened to have a cnevance, and r.o experience, he would have realised that the occasion absolutely forbade speeches which would have- embarrassed the truest-in-chief if made in his presence. But Mr Archer did not realise this, or chose deliberately to ignore it. Though he has no grievance, and is an educated man with thirty years' of public hie behind him, he went out of his way to make a speech that would have been astonishing in any circumstances, anil which, in the circumstances in which it was delivered, was absolutely unpardonable. It is difficult to -account for such a lapse except on the assumption that Mr Archer feels not merely aggrieved by the Square judgment, but thwarted and enraged by it, and forgot on Friday night—even if he did not go intending to say such things ".i the presence of the Governor-General—-where he was and in what circumstances he was speaking. Whatever the explanation/is, it is impossible not to feel ashamed that lie spoke as he did as Mayor of Christchurch. and involved everybody in some kind o? responsibility for his manners.