EMPIRE PREFERENCE

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 303, 18 November 1930, Page 7

EMPIRE PREFERENCE

CONSERVATIVE PARTY’S SUPPORT. MESSAGE TO THE DOMINIONS. EFFECT OF CHANGE IN GOVERNMENT. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) Received November 18, 10.40 a.m. LONDON, Nov. 17. “I can give an emphatic message to the Dominion Prime Ministers, that the Conservative Party, unpreeedently in history, is unanimous in support of Imperial preference,” said Sir H. Page Croft, Conservative member for Bournemouth, in the course of a speech he delivered at Harrow. “Mercifully within a year there would be the Ottawa Conference, when he hoped the Conservatives would be in office with a mandate which would save the Empire from threatened disruption. “It is for the electorate absolutely to ensure that we should clasp hands across the seas and establish the trade partnership which Mr Ramsay MacDonald wantonly refused,” added the speaker.

LONDON PAPER’S COMMENT.

Received November 18, 8.5 a.m. LONDON, Nov. 17. Commenting editorially on the Imperial Conference, the Times says “Though hampered by the situation in Australia, Mr J. H. Scullin rendered notable service as mediator, especially in the closing stages. Mr G. W. Forbes was universally popular. Mr J. H. Thomas may be credited with supporting Mr MacDonald in the final struggle to save whatever was saveable from the wreck of so many hopes. The Government emerged from the conference shaken in credit.” The Sunday Times says: “The conference broke up in an atmosphere of defeat and disappointment. Its record is one of nullity and of deferment. This Government must certainly go down in history as the most incompetent of the century.”