THE H.S. TRIBUNE. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1923. MR. MASSEY AND THE CONFERENCES.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIII, Issue 285, 17 November 1923, Page 4

THE H.S. TRIBUNE. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1923. MR. MASSEY AND THE CONFERENCES.

The brief summary which one of today’s cable messages gives of Mr. Massey’s impressions of the work o£ the Imperial and Economic Conferences just closed may confidently be taken to be in no way intended as exhaustive. It deals almost exclusively with the question of Imperial Preference, the only other subjects mentioned,, and that very casually, being wireless communication for the Dominions and German reparations. We may take it for granted, in fact are assured by the telegraphic reports already received, that not a few other matters of serious interest to us have been discussed and, if not actually decided, at least placed in the way for ultimate decision. The prominence given by him to the preference issue is no doubt due, in the first place, to the fact that he doubtless assumes it to be the one of most immediate and direct interest to his fellow-citizens out here, and, in the next place, because it is the theme that for the moment is, incidentally with the general question of tariff reform, in everybody’s mouth in the Motherland, The opinion has already been expressed here, and is still held, that the issue of preference for the Dominions has been altogether too strongly press-

ed by their representatives, having I regard to the embarrassments that already beset the Imperial Government. Having in view the conditions that obtain in the Old Country just now, and the difficulties that have to be surmounted before they can be appreciably improved, we think that it would have been both very much more considerate and very much more politic had less present insistence been made upon it. However, as things have turned out, it may be gathered that no very great extra perplexity has been occasioned Mr. Baldwin and his colleagues by the attitude of the Dominion delegates, and particularly of the Commonwealth Prime Minister, on this topic, for it is manifest that the political crisis now reached would have come in any event. At the same time, we cannot help feeling that the Dominions will not have improved their place in the esteem of the people of Great Britain, and especially of those we choose to call the masses. The relatively prosperous Dominions, by urging their own interests so strenuously just now, would seem to have shown but scant appreciation of the sufferings and privations to which so vast a number of the people of Great Britain are subjected. Having mooted their ideas on the subject of intro-imperia] preference, they might well have left the pressing of thfeir adoption for a more seasonable time.

As for Mr. Massey personally, we think that the Dominion may well indulge in a feeling of considerable gratification at the reception he has been given on all hands on this his fifth official visit to the Old Country. It is very evident that individually he has secured a place of very high confidence in the minds not ony of British statesmen, but also of the British people generally. They have seen him make no attempt at anything like flashy, rhetorical brilliancy, or at imposing his notions willy-nilly upon his audiences. They have recognised in him a man of sterling sincerity, showing in practical shape the sound common sense that- in the end appeals most to a British community, and also one who, as his latest utterance emphasises, places the interests of the Empire as a whole before all else. Mr. Massey, the man of person and speech both plain and unadorned, has manifestly, and as the result of more familiar acquaintance, established himself more than the representative of any of the other oversea Domininons not only in the intelligences but in the hearts also of the British people. Nor need we think that this is by any means altogether due to his own personality, for there can be little doubt but that he has

the very distinct initial advantage of representing a daughter country that, second to none, has avowed and proved its loyalty and gratitude to the Motherland. It is fully understood at Home that all he has to say on these points is but the expression of the deeper feelings of the vast majority of the people whose mouthpiece he is. Thus both in individual and in representative capacity our Prime Minister has made himself a persona grata with all sections and classes, a result which is matter of no small importance to the Dominion. The exceptional recognitions that are being so gracefully extended to and bestowed upon him are to be interpreted as an appreciation not only of the man but of his country also. They are of no empty character, but have their very distinct significance and value for all of us out here. Doubtless it has been noted that throughout the preference discussions Mr. Massey, recognising the seriousness of the Old Country’s own troubles, has been very much less vehement than Mr. Bruce in asserting the claims of the Dominions, and this will probably have counted for a good deal both to him and to us.