MR. COATES’S TOUR

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 December 1926, Page 5

MR. COATES’S TOUR

VISIT TO SHEFFIELD. ' (Australian & N.Z. Cable Assn.) i LONDON, November 30. Mr J. ,G. Coates? spent a busy day at Sheffield. He visited Brown and Bayley’s steel works also Hadfield’s, Edgar Alien’s, and Vickers’ works. He saw railway wheel guns manufac-. tured. He and his party were the guests of the Chamber of Commerce at luncheon, and then visited the cutlery works. Mr Coates received the city’s freedom and was presented with a beautiful cabinet of cutlery. When Mr Coates visited Glasgow, he. tried to find the parents of an old friend named Hughie- Gallagher, a Glasgow boy, whom Mr Coates once found in the bush, after Gallaghei' had run away from his uncle’s farm. Mr Coates reared the boy, and they joined up for the war together. Hughie was killed in action. Mr Coates always wanted to find his parents. Gallagher’s mother has now written to Mr Coates in London. KIDDERMINSTER’S WELCOME. LONDON, December 1. Still beset by cold foggy weather, Mr. Bruce and Mr. Coates visited the Nettlefold’s screw works, Birmingham, where the late Mr Joseph Chamberlain made a fortune, and afterwards went to Kidderminster and saw at Brinton’s factory, carpets ordered for Canberra, some to designs submitted from. Australia. To say the least, the designs chosen, or forwarded, surprised everyone. They compared unfavourably with the more tasteful designs in stock. The party was shown samples designed by Prince Consort as well as patterns favoured' in Australia 30 or 40 years ago, and to modern eyes all were equally ghastly. Later, Mr. Bruce and Mr. Coates were luncheoned, and became Kidderminster’s only living freemen. Both were surprised to learn that the carpet industry was one of the few' to suffer little after the war.

AUSTRALIAN MAN UFACTURERS

LONDON. December 1

Addressing the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, Mr Bruce, referring to the report of the Inter-Imper-ial Relations Committee, presented to the Imperial Conference, emphasised

that it created nothing now. The conference had not attempted to reshape the Empire; its only creation being to produce a clear understanding of the position. The report said

nothing which was not true before it was written. It had been said that the report had stressed autonomy rather than unity, and paved the way for disintegration rather than, co-op-eration.! (( This view, was more apparent than real. Unity had always existed and had been taken for granted. Autonomy held been emphasised because it was there that changes had come, and a definition had become necessary. Australia was not going to be content wit.b one-sided developments, to. be a food producer and buy all her manufactures from Britain. England had made the tragic mistake of one-sidedness with the result that a revival of agriculture was one of her greatest problems. They are determined in Australia to build up at any cost industries essential for defence in war time, and secondly, other industries best suited to their circumstances. In the meantime, Australia offered great opportunities for British manufactures. EXETER’S FREEDOM LONDON, Dec. 1. The Exeter Council decided to present the City’s freedom to Mr. Bruce on Monday, when he cuts the first sod of the new South West University. U.S.A. AND MR BRUCE. NEW YORK, December 1. Mr Harvey, ex-Ambassador to Britain, in an address, acclaimed the. birth of the new Commonwealth of British States as a “momentous event of the century in the forward march of our race.” He paid an eloquent tribute to Mr Bruce for his references to the United States during the Conference. He bespoke for “this ruling Democrat when on his way home through the United States a welcome not inferior to that recently .accorded a nominal Queen.” , . '