OTTAWA MISSION

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 230, 24 June 1932, Page 12

OTTAWA MISSION

Leaving on Sunday DELEGATION’S STAFF Dr. Campbell to Go The members of the New Zealand ■delegation to the Imperial Economic Conference at Ottawa will leave Wellington for Auckland by train on Sunday evening to join the Aorangi for Vancouver. Special meetings of the Cabinet are being held daily, and it is expected that the Ministry will be particularly busy during the next two days completing the details connected with the preparation of the Dominion’s case for presentation at the conference.

Arrangements have been completed concerning the staff that the delegation will take with it. The Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates will be accompanied by his unemployment secretary, Dr. R. M. Campbell, and the Hon. W. Downle Stewart will take his private secretary, Mr. T. R. Aickin. It is stated that Dr. Campbell's services will be of considerable value to the delegation in view of his specialised knowledge of the questions that will be discussed at the conference. For two years Dr. Campbell studied economics abroad, finally gaining his doctorate of philosophy after completing ' an exhaustive thesis on preferential tariffs within the Empire. His grasp of these questions will be of great assistance to the delegation. The Ministerial secretarial corps extended to farewell to the two private secretaries going to Ottawa at a special gathering at Parliament House yesterday, expressions of goodwill being made by Mr. F. D. Thomson, Permanent Head of the Prime Minister’s Department, and other speakers. During Mr. Coates’s absence it has practically been decided that the Minister of Agriculture, Hon. C. E. Macmillan, will take over the portfolio of Public Works, instead of the Hon. E. A. Ransom, as was originally intended. The Prime Minister will take over Finance and Customs from Mr. Stewart, Sir Apirana Ngata taking the Attorney-Generalship, and the Hon. A. Hamilton Employment. Following the official opening of the Wellington Winter Show yesterday afternoon, a meeting of the executive of the New Zealand Manufacturers’ Association was held, at which Mr. J. T. Spears, president, presided. In addition to the Wellington members there were present: Messrs. S. Takle, president of the Auckland association; Mr. I. Woolf, and Mr. J. Pascoe, Christchurch association; and Mr. G. W. Reid, of Dunedin, who is to represent New Zealand manufacturers at the Ottawa Conference. The meeting was held in committee, and subjects to be dealt with at the Ottawa Conference were discussed, Mr. Reid being fully informed as to the views of the New Zealand manufacturers. The president, on behalf of the fed-, eration, wished Mr. Reid “God-speed,” a safe journey, and a successful mission. DAIRY INTERESTS Importance of Ottawa ADVISORY DELEGATE Dominion Special Service. „ Palmerston North, June 23. The importance of the. Empire Economic Conference at Ottawa was commented upon by the chairman of the Dairy Produce Board, Mr. W. A. Irons, in the course of an address he delivered at the National Dairy Conference at Palmerston North to-day. He said that if there were any industry that should be looked after by the New Zealand delegation at Ottawa that should be' the dairying industry. Mr. Irons said the Dairy Board was of opinion that the Ottawa Conference would be the most important event in the history of this Dominion. The board had seen fit to support the conference and send an advisory delegate there as a representative of the dairy farmers of the Dominion. In pressing for representation at Ottawa the board had been up against a fair amount of opposition from commercial interests and a section of the city Press. It was felt by the board that if any industry were to be looked after at Ottawa it should be the dairy industry, for the reason that it was the largest exporting primary industry of the Dominion. The dairy farmers had been fortunate in securing ttye services of Mr. William Goodfellow to go to Ottawa to advise the Parliamentary delegation as to what would suit the Dominion. His selection by the board had been endorsed practically throughout the Dominion.