EMPIRE'S TRADE

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 81, 3 October 1923, Page 6

EMPIRE'S TRADE

ECONOMIC CONFERENCE

SPEECHES AT OPENING

MB. MASSEY ON PBEFERENCE.

(DNIIJD pmss ASSOCIATION.—COPYRIGHT.)

(REDTMt'S TELEGRAM.) (Eeceived 3rd October, 2 p.m.)

ILONDON, 2nd October.

There was a very full attendance of delegates and experts at the opening meeting of the Imperial Economic Conference in the Cabinet Offices, Whitehall.

Sir Philip Lloyd-Grearae, President of. the Board of Trade, in his opening speech, briefly reviewed the economic situation and the tasks of the Conference.

Mr. Mackenzie King (Canada) Mr. Massey (New Zealand), Mr. J. M'Grath (Irish Free State), Mr. Warren (Newfoundland), Mr. Innes (India), and Mr. Ormsby-Gore, Colonial Under-Secretary, in their speeches in reply, emphasised the tremendous possibilities .of development of the trade of the Empire, which was capable of producing practically all the raw material required in the Motherland, and their desire to help to the utmost.

Mr. Massey, at some length, stressed the importance of the principle of preference, not merely, to trade, but to migration. He earnestly hoped that the Conference s would not terminate before a satisfactory solution was found for the Umpire's problems and that the work would not be confined to the passing of resolutions, but would be translated into action.

The Conference adjourned till ths 15th October.