Evening Post

Evening Post, Volume CXIV, Issue 25, 29 July 1932, Page 6

Evening Post.

FBTDAY, JULY 29, 1932.

DOMINION DEMANDS

The feats )oi the "Montreal Gazette,** which we discussed yesterday, that "the co-operative spirit seems certain to undergo a much more severe test than was contemplated when the Conference opened," were followed by another message from Ottawa of almost undiluted optimism. But the contradiction is not really quite so flat as it appears at first sight. The pessimism of the "Montreal Gazette" was based upon "the uncertainty which surrounds the attitude of the British delegation," and it was naturally experienced in an aggravated form by the unnamed Canadian papers which were convinced that no good could come out of a delegation which included in Mr. Runciman an ardent Free Trader and in Mr. Baldwin a Protectionist who was almost as bad. The grounds of this pessimism were unfortunately not touched by the optimistic message which followed. The optimism was inspired by the happy harmony which was enabling the Dominion, producers to.unite in their demands upon Great Britain, but there was still" room .for pessimism in the possibility that the immense tactical advantage of this united front would be neutralised by the perverse inability of the British delegation to reconcile these demands with the interests of their country, and of the Empire as a whole.. "The fruit problem is practically solved.- This was one of the cheerful items reported yesterday* Divorced from its context, it certainly seems a considerable achievement, but to supply the context is to discount it considerably. Representatives of the fruit industry of all the Dominions met this morning with the leaders of the delegations and an agroement was reached ia ninety minutes. The case,. which is based on tho same ..principles as butter and meat, namely, preference plus quota, is now ready for immediate presentation to the British delegation. Everybody connected with tho industry is extremely pleased at tho result. This extreme satisfaction is natural and reasonable. It is a good and joyful thing, as the Psalmist says, "for brethren to dwell together in unity," and even when it is merely a case of uniting to get something out of the pld man the principle applies. He has come to the Conference, as Mr,, Thomas has assured us, with an open mind, and, as his children hope,, with open pockets. Whether they will open wide enough to justify these hopes remains to be seen, but he will certainly find a united demand harder to resist. For this purpose we are a happy family indeed, but New Zealand, having a relatively small interest in the matter, can contemplate the picture with almost unbiased admiration. South Africa is interested in citrus and' luxury fruits; Canada, Australia, and' South Africa in pears, and Western Australia and South Africa iv fresh grapes. Australia is enormously interested in canned and dried fruits. It is doubtless an accident that puts South Africa at the head of the list, but it is nevertheless pleasant to find her there, and to know that, though,her most-favoured-natiqn arrangement with Germany might have been expected to embarrass her in the competition, she can show herself for this purpose just as staunch an Imperialist as the best of them. It must also be by accident that Australia is put at the bottom of the list. Being "enormously interested in canned and dried fruits," and having at the head of her delegation a man who before he left home proclaimed in the true Bbinbastes Furioso vein that she was not going to "tolerate" any nonsense from the Old Country, Australia might reasonably have expected to come first As expounded by Mr. Bruce, both her merits and her desires are indeed so enormous that the other Dominion delegates should perhaps be grateful that he is content to run with them at all, even in the front place. As chairman of die Dominions Meat Committee, we;are told that he submitted proposals which were the basis of the discussion, but we are not told that they were adopted. The scale of Mr. Bruce's ambitions in this department may be inferred from the one item supplied in our report: of this committee's proceedings on Wednesday:— ... Australia is keenly interested in raising bacon prices from the present 55s tp from 75s to 80s. She could then export frozen pig earensses at a profitable prico, enabling British curing factories to restart. It was thoughtful of Mr. Bruce to suggest that his proposals would "enable British curing factories to restart," but how much more they might "enable" the British workers, of whom more than 2,000,000 are still unemployed, to pay for their bacon is a matter to which his speculations do not appear to have extended, and which he may have considered to be beyond his province. jha, ultimate lespoosihility no doubt

rests upon the British delegation and the British Government, but for the present they are condemned lo a silence which puts them in a very invidious position. Demands on a scale which has naturally excited alarm in Britain are being publicly piled up by the Dominion delegates from day to day. The extent to which they will be covered by the concessions that the Dominions have offered is the subject of private discussion and calculation. The uncertainty is encouraging suspicion and misrepresentation in the Canadian Press and is being misrepresented in another way at Home. The victory of Labour in the Wednesbury by-elec-tion is something more than the ordinary swing-back of the pendulum from the party's overwhelming defeat last year. It shows that the Labour Party has actually polled better than it did in 1929, and the victorious candidate points to Ottawa as a principal cause. No doubt, ho says, a tremendous fillip had been given to Labour by the people's fear that the Ottawa Conference was going to result in taxation of wheat and meat. Yet the British Government, which the Wednesbury electors may have condemned for sacrificing British interests to those of the Empire, is actually excluded from the Empire by the involuntary humour of the Press Association's correspondent at Ottawa. "The Empire proposals," he says, "will now be submitted-to the British delegation." The British Government is getting it badly both ways! _