THE CONFERENCE OF PREMIERS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXII, Issue 133, 3 December 1906, Page 7

THE CONFERENCE OF PREMIERS.

SPEECH BY SIR JOSEPH WARD. In his speech at the Municipal Theatre at Invercargill on Friday niglit in reply to the toast of his health the Premier referred to the Conference of Premiers to be held in London next April. He said, according to the Otago Daily Times report, that he hoped to be able to fulfil a portion at least of the hopes of the people ho should represent on that occasion He would be the representative of no particular party, or class, or individual, but\of l\ew Zealand and New Zealand alone, with -the honest desire to do all he could to assist the conference in respect of- those affairs" that we're essential for the maintenance and indissolubility of the British Empire. (Applause.) Their concsrn would not be the accession of further territory. To-day tho countries of tho world were engaged in a fight for commercial supremacy. If they viewed what was going on in Germany, in France, in America, in countries of our own — Canada amongst the numberit would be found they were all fighting to get an external trade that would aft'oid additional employment to their people and push en the wheels of industry. The fight of the future would be not for tho accession of more territory, but for commercial supremacy. Germany and France, Germany in particular, had carried technical education to a degree of perfection no other country could boast of. The reason of it all was to advance the interests of commerce. The German 'Government was giving enormous subsidies to tho lines of leviathan steamers that were ploughing the seas of the world. Why? Because they were determined to take away from Britain — and rightly if Britain allowed it, and did not give such subsidies as would prevent it — her proud position in the maikets of the world. 'Whilst other countries "were so engaged, what was England doing to assist her own competitors in the struggle? There was talking and there was legislating, but they could not find anything in the way of a subsidy such as the £300,000 a year Germany was giving to help a line of steamers carrying German goods and German influence into all parts of the world. France was also paying huge subsidies to-day. It was not a. question of obtaining British territory, but of the education of the masses of the people in those things that were of vital interest, not only to the merchant kings, but to ordinary tradesmen. Britain would have to do what her rivals for tho trade of the world svere doing in order to hold her own. (Applause.^)