OTTAWA CONFERENCE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 204, 29 July 1932, Page 8

OTTAWA CONFERENCE

MEETINGS OF SUB-COMMITTEES. (United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) Received duly 20, 12.55 p.m. OTTAAVA, July 27. Mr Havonga and other Dominion Ministers to-day presented tho Empire fruit proposals to Mr AValter Runciman. Sir John Gilmour and Sir P. Cunliffe Lister. The sub-committee on Industrial Standardisation elected as chan_an Dr H. M. Tory, President of the National Research Council of Can’ada. It aims at co-ordinating tho industrial specifications throughout tho Empire and has already discussed timber, chemicals, agriculture and machinery. Dr Craig (New Zealand) was elected chairman of the. Customs Administration Sub-committee. An official verbal communique stated: “The discussion chiefly concerned the valuation for duty purposes with the view to gaining uniformity and tho elimination of matters causing uncertainty.” Two hundred newspaper men burnt into laughter at the meagreness of tho announcement which is typically uninformative in accordance with the official policy towards tho world’s Press.

QUOTA SYSTEM. MR COATES’S REFERENCE.

AA’ELLINGTON, July 29. “No special significance attaches at the moment to statements made by Mr Coates at the opening of the Imperial Economic Conference at Ottawa concerning tho application of tho quota system to New Zealand’s imports,” said the Prime Minister, Rt. Hon. G. AV. Forbes, yesterday. Mr Coates said in his opening speech that New Zealand would be prepared to discuss at tho appropriate time the application of the quota system to selected articles which New Zealand imported. He was referring at the time to the application of the quota to non-Empire commodities placed on Empire markets, and he said that New Zealand was concerned with the threatened flooding of the markets, she supplied with primary produce. Discussing these statements _ yesterday', Mr Forbes said that at a time like the present, when trade was much dislocated, the Dominion was prepared to discuss any proposals at all that might be brought forward to assist Empire trading. It was vitally necessary that New Zealand should preserve her markets overseas, and any plan that might be suggested whereby this would be assured would receive consideration. It would remain for any proposal to apply the quota system to New Zealand imports to be thoroughly discussed beforo the Dominion would bo able to say_ even whether this course would be desirable or possible of achievement with practical results. . . Now Zealand looked to Great Britain for certain concessions, but in return the Dominion would have to be prepared to assist the Old Country. AVbat form any plan might take would remain to be seen. Mr Coates’s reference to a quota for imports was merely one proposal of many that might bo considered at Ottawa.