IMPERIAL PREFERENCE

Gisborne Times, Volume LX, Issue 9798, 7 May 1924, Page 5

IMPERIAL PREFERENCE

ATTITUDE OF AUSTRALIA AND DOMINION..

“‘AFTERMATH OF ECONOMIC CONFERENCE.”

United 'J’rers Association —v (Itoceived May 6,. 5.5 p.m.) LONDON, Alay G.

At the Imperial Industries Club dinner .Sir J ames Allen presiding, Mr F. L. McDougall said that owing to tiro ,-.unfortunate aftermath of the Economic Conference Australia would probably have to extend the British paper preference to Canada. Paper, cotton, woollens and dyes well illustrated the deliberate shelter /from foreign competition given to the British trade, by Australian preferences. Would Britain realise that the orderly policy of Empire development might bo the only safeguard in an era of intensified industrial competition, which the restoration ■of Europe must involve ? It was essential if Empire development was to be safe in the hands of British democracy it should be made clear that Imperial policy was never ’ imperious, that ideals of the empires of Spain or Portugal with their prohibition of trade to. all foreigners could never be revived,. and that wo did nq| intend following the hundred per cent, discrimination against foreigners, which America and Japan now employed in their dependencies. Our ideal must be an Empire as self-dependent as piossible. Concerning the essential foodstuffs and raw materials Mi- AlcDougall pleaded for a commonwealth within which British trade would reasonably be preferred, but in which foreign competition was not excluded. But it was most important that the Empire should bo a union of free pcoplos. With this ideal of Empire development we must win the affections of the British democracy, and British Labor. Sir. J. Cook said that Australia and New Zealand took up the position that they begged for * nothing, but were conscious it was not in the interests of the Empire that they should have to betake themselves to tlio course that now remained open to them. They folt -that if the Empire was good enough to fight for it was good enough to trade with, and they, declined to apply strict mathematical economic consideration to the development of the Empire’s future, rather they would fall back upon the King’s statement that it was then duty even at some sacrifice to develop family estate.—A. and N.Z.C.A.