CAN THE DOMINIONS SUPPLY BRITAIN?

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 98, 27 April 1932, Page 7

CAN THE DOMINIONS SUPPLY BRITAIN?

"Some may ask, 'Can the dominions supply, the Motherland with/all the food she requires?' The answer is that the dominions, if guaranteed a market under tariff 'shelter, will soon do so. Take New Zealand: New Zealand has increased her^general production by 400 per cent, since 1901. In fifteen or twenty: by intensive cultivation and by reduction of costs, New Zealand can double her present' production if she has a guaranteed. market, and very similarly other dominions.

"All the omens are favourable," he' said. '' All the elements are there for a fair treaty to be made,at Ottawa."

BONDS OF TRADE,

In ■conclusion, Sir James maintained that the bonds between Homeland and dominions and colonies could most surely be strengthened and held secure by mutual trade interests, for though between such, lands as New Zealand and^Australia and the Old Country the tie of kinship would hold, for all-time, there was.no such bond between the peoples of such British colonies as South Africa, where the majority were of Boer extraction, or parts of Canada, wherfr were French-Canadians, and the Old Country, loyal though such colonies might now be to the British Crown.

A- vote of thanks was,- accorded. Sir. James Parr ■on the motion of Mr, G. Shirtcliffe, who said that he agreed with the argument put forward that the strengthening of the ties of the great British Empire was most certainly; to ..be assured on a basis of interchange of trade; There was ample opportunity f or_ reciprocity with the Old-Country by an'increase of imports from Britain and. a decrease of imports from countries, and, he believed, New Zealand had not sufficiently recognised the debt of gratitude she owed to the Mother Country in absorbing New Zealand's primary products, a recognition which would be made by the diversion of trade." with foreign countries back to England.