EMPIRE FRIENDSHIP.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 295, 10 November 1934, Page 6

EMPIRE FRIENDSHIP.

DOMINION AND HOMELAND

LORD BLEDISLOE’S ADVICE.

Per Press Association. CHRISTCHURCH, Nov. 9. In bis address at a luncheon given in his honour at the Metropolitan Show to-day, the Lord Bledisloe, emphasised that New Zealand farmers should endeavour to maintain friendly and close contact with the fanners of the Old Land. His Excellency expressed the confident opinion that any differences among farmers in the Empire could soon be adjusted. “What has the future in store for you?” His Excellency asked when speaking of the courage and resourcefulness shown by New Zealand farmers in their recent difficulties. “You have the pick of the Empire territories— Nature’s richest gift. Your sample of humanity—British and native—is unsurpassed elsewhere. Your destiny is what you choose to make it, with the help of industry and an improved knowledge, with a careful eye to economy and, above all, with breadth of vision—a quality difficult always to exercise in such insular countries as New Zealand and Great Britain. But there are two friendly contacts or links of knowledge and sympathy which, as your friend and well-wisher, I would urge you to maintain as essential to your lasting welfare. One is ’ contact with your urban population and their reasonable ambitions, and the other is contact with the farmers of the Old Land.

“Whereas the Ottawa Agreement tended to emphasise the identity of interest between all Empire farmers, outside economic forces have threatened to neutralise them. As these forces abate (and evidences of abatement are appearing in America and Germany), all pretexts for controversy within the happy circle of the British family of nations will, let us hope, subside. Indeed, I am perfectly certain that even under present conditions adjustments can be effected without economic injustice or injury to any experienced and enterprising primary producer in Great Britain or New Zealand.”

His Excellency added that one reason that he had declined an invitation to prolong his sojourn in New Zealand was his desire, knowing the agricultural conditions in both countries, to take some small part in the task of reconciling those differences.