U.S. AND EMPIRE TRADE

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 269, 10 August 1938, Page 11

U.S. AND EMPIRE TRADE

Sir Earle Page’s Talks

In Canada

COMPREHENSIVE PACT URGED

Co-operation To End World Disorganisation

By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. (Received August 9, 8.45 p.m.)

NEW YORK, August 8

It is believed that Sir Earle Page, Australian Minister ' for Commerce in his talks with Mr. Mackenzie King, Canadian Prime Minister, and the Canadian Ministers, of Customs and Trade, has laid a basis for a revision of the commercial relations between Australia and Canada after the conclusion of the Anglo-American trade pact negotiations.

Addressing . business men in Toronto to-day, Sir Earle Page stressed the importance of closetrelations not only between' the United States and Britain, but between the United States and the entire British Empire. He praised the 1932- Ottawa agreements as being an extension of the existing comparative free .trade throughout the Empire. “That co-operation should be extended to cover bargaining with the United States,” he added. “A trade treaty between Britain and America,” he continued, “would be very good, but one between the United States and the whole Empire would be a great step toward world peace. Such a treaty, if wide in scope and liberal in terms, must have repercussions on the whole of the world trade.”

In order to achieve best results, Sir Earle Page thought that negotiations should be conducted simultaneously between the United States, Britain and the Dominions. He concluded by saying that only the combined strength and common action of all the Englishspeaking nations could rescue the world from the welter of disorganisation in which it found itself.