CHANGES IN LONDON

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 76, 31 March 1922, Page 11

CHANGES IN LONDON

DOMINION REPRESENTATION

sirTj. cook on inter-imperial TRADE.

(rROM OUR OWN CORRBSVONDENT.) LONDON, 20th January. That large body of the public whose Interests either officially or privately are bound up with the Dominions have been bidding farewell to one High Commissioner and at the same time welcoming another. Sir George Perley, who has represented the Canadian Government for over seven years, has had to resign his position owing- to the change of Government in Canada. Sir George will be remembered chiefly for his work in Englandduring the war, when the Canadian forces stationed in England or in France required his unremitting attention, for while acting as Hisjh Commissioner he continued to hold' liis portfolio of Minister of Oversea Forces. Lady Perley has been of great assistance to her husband, and she /has made a very^ wide circle of friends while in England. Sir James and Lady Allen were guests of the Canada Club this week at a farewell dinner to the retiring High Commissioner and Lady Perley. The Duke of Devonshire presided. . . AUSTRALIA'S REPRESENTATIVE. Australia has now sent a new High Commissioner. Mi 1. Andrew Fisher left for Australia some months ago, and the selection of his successor was somewhat, delayed. Sir Joseph Cook comes straight from tlie office of Treasurer of the Commonwealth Government. As Lord Novar, who preside? at a luncheon given by the Australian and New Zealand Luncheon Club, remarked, in proposing Sir Joseph's health, he was the only Chancellor of the Exchequer at this moment in the world who could boast that his last Budget showed. an increase in revenue of £2,000,000, and, more remark-1 able still, a decrease in expenditure of i £4,000,000. Sir Joseph and Lady Cook in leaving Australia had made- sacrifices. They came from a country where £50,000,000 was being given to the landlords and had come to a country where landlords were paying out 25s for every 20s they received. Sir Joseph,'in replying to the toast, said he brought greetings to this country from Australia, and expressions of filial loyalty and devotion to the great federation of nations. Australia was still with the Empire in solving all the problems of peace and reconstruction as she was with tho Empire during the days of the war. Although the obligations and responsibilities of Australia were not quite' of the same onerous kind as those of the Motherland, they had their difficulties there, and they were standing up to them with the same spirit as the people of Britain. There was one clear line 'of light, which, if followed, would help the Empire to find a way out of. most of its difficulties, and that was a recognition in all. parts and among all sections of the Empire Of common citizenship of the Empire, wherever any part of it might be situated; In claiming all the privileges of the Empire the outer Donlinjons were ready to share in its responsibilities equally, fairly, and equitably. If they would hold fast to this fundamental principle of Empire citizenship, it would go a long way to solve all their difficulties, and help them in their mutual relationships.

The new High Commissioner was quick to make known his feelings in regard to trade within the Empire. In. the -matter of trade relationship, he thought it was incontrovertible'that the people who had poured out everything in life, including life itself, in defence of one another.- should-nob-haggle. iif trade bargaining in quite the same way- as 'they would haggle in their bargaining with a neutral country which stood aside in the great cataclysmic upheaval and grew steadily richer out of their necessities and out of their agony. ' MEAT AND FREIGHTS, They now had their granaries full in Australia, and everything, was again set fair, but they had very serious difficulties in the marketing of their products and in the relationship of those products with those of ■ other countries which were nearer to Great Britain. Was it wrong to ask the people of Great Britain to consider the difficulties which confronted them in, trying to send these products 'to a preferable British market? Britain wanted meat, and was getting it from elsewhere. It was not" the fault of Australia, that she did not send her meat here. Shipping freights made it impossible to sond it. 1 That was Britain's problem. There was a difference of 250 per cent, in the freights compared with pre-war days, and this ruled Australia oat of the meat market. During the war they had Bold similar meat to Britain at about a third of the price that was charged by the people who were sending it to Britain now. Now that the days of Australia's trouble had come in marketing this commodity, was it Unfair to ask that Britain should consider this problem not ih an entirely economic atmosphere, because' that was not the precise atmosphere in which they discussed family problems on the family hearthstone? (Cheers.) It was hard indeed for the people of the outer Dominions to stand, aside while the Mother Country fed the big foreign trusts, who .did not help the Empire as the' Dominions did during the war. ' Sir James Allen and practically, all the otlier High Commissioners and AgentsGeneral were present at the luncheon. Others, were Lieutenant-GeneraT Sir A. J. Godley and Sir James Mills. . .