OTTAWA AGREEMENTS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 176, 25 June 1935, Page 9

OTTAWA AGREEMENTS

ATTITUDE OF AUSTRALIA. FORMER MINISTER CRITICAL. Per Press Association. ROTORUA, June 24. Allegations that the Australian Gov. ernment, although a party to the Ottawa Agreements, had failed to honour them, and had also been guilty of breaches of confidence in regard to official communications from the British Government, are made by Hon. A. D. McLeod, M.P. for Wairarapa, and a former Minister of Industries and Commerce, who is spending a holiday here. In a letter to the Rotorua Morning Post Mr McLeod says:“If, as a result of the present conferences, Britain imposes import taxes upon the Dominions’ foodstuffs enter ing Britain the blame will rest entirely upon Australia. The Ottawa Conference of 1932 was called for the •purpose of seeing whether taxation on imported Dominion foodstuffs could be avoided by Britain by the arranging of suitable agreements with her Dominions. Although a party to the Ottawa Agreements, Australia from 'the start has failed to honour those agreements. She has time and again deliberately broken the Ottawa Agreements, seeking an unfair advantage over her sister Dominions and charging to her own home consumers almost double the price for which she is selling her surplus foodstuffs in Britain. She has earned for all the Dominions the name of being trade dumpers. She time and again has failed to observe the confidence imposed by Britain upon many of her trade communications with the Dominions. Australia may be accused of deliberately doing all these things in the knowledge that it is improbable (if not impossible) for Britain to enter into unilateral trade agreements with her different Dominions.

“Long before either Mr Forbes or Mr Coates left for London the New Zealand Government was informed that there was no fear of the British Government entering into any arrangement with Australia as regards meat or anything else which would not equally be open to all the other Dominions. Britain’s word, much less a signed agreement, can l>e relied upon not to be broken ; therefore, it is unnecessary for New Zealand producers to worry about some supposed agreement that may be made with Australia by Britain to the detriment of New Zealand.”