SHEER INCOMPETENCE

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 1, 2 January 1931, Page 8

SHEER INCOMPETENCE

NEVER MEANT BUSINESS

MR. AMEEY ON THE CONFERENCE

(From "The Post's 11 ReprMWitatlva.) I LONDON, 18th November. The Bight Hon. L. S. Amery, previously Secretary of the Dominions in the Conservative Cabinet, .writes to "The Times" expressing his opinions j regarding the Imperial Conference. "Sheer incompetence," "cheapness of spirit," and "never really meant business," arc some of the unflattering phrases applied to the British Government. ' '' The failure has been -with the British Government," Mr. Amery wrote. "On the main issue, that of tariff pre-j ference, it has met the Dominions with a flat refusal even to discuss their I offer. Tariff preference was excluded from the purview of Mr. Graham's j Economic Sub-Committee, as being a matter of 'high policy,' and, apparently, during all these weeks, Mr. Bennett was given no opportunity of explaining or expanding his proposals, or I even of meeting the objections enter- j tamed against them. (' "As for the alternative to which the Conference were invited to direct their I attention, it soon became evident, I fear, that no plan either for quota or bulk purchase had been seriously thought o\it beforehand, or even endorsed iii principle by the Cabinet. It almost looks as if these questions had been merely thrown at the Dominions to keep them occupied till it was time for the Conference to break up. The Dominion Prime Ministers may well feel that the sacrifices they have made in attending the Conference have ended in failure, not because of the inherent difficulties in coming to terms, or the inadequacy of tho time available, but because the British Government has never really meant business. Postponement to a further Conference next year offers little hope of a better issue, save on one condition: that is, that Britain will be represented at tho Conference by men of a very different temper.

"Mr. MatiDonald and his colleagues will not go down to history as dangerous revolutionaries. Tlieir place,will be with those who have clone even greater mischief by sheer incompetence and lack o£ the courage to deal seriously wilh serious issues. In cheapness of spirit they have now made the great refusal. May it not be too late for others to retrieve their eworl'_-