EMPIRE COMMERCE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 190, 13 July 1936, Page 9

EMPIRE COMMERCE.

COMING CONFERENCE IN N'EAV ZEALAND. COMMEMORATIVE STAMPS. , “The Federation of Chambers of the British Empire will hold its annual conference in New Zealand next October, and the Post Office, which is so closely linked with the business community in all its activities, will specially mark this important occasion by an issue of suitably designed stamps,” states the Postmaster-General (Hon. F. Jones) in an interview. This Empire organisation of business men. which has its headquarters in

London, has followed tho practice of holding the annual conference in an overseas portion of the Empire once every three years, and the 1909 conference took place in Australia. The coming conference, the first occasion on which New Zealand lias been so honoured, will open in AA’ellington on October 2, and will he continued through the following week. The president (Viscount Elibank) will preside, and Sir Thomas AA’ilford, who is chairman of the executive, will also be present. Questions of great importance to business interests throughout the Empire will come up for discussion, and the conference will attract to the Dominion a very influential gathering of those prominent in the Empire’s commerce.

The designs for the commemorative stamps, five in number, have been approved, and the plates for their production are being prepared by the Australian Commonwealth stamp printing branch. The half-penny denomination in green will have for its subject the production of wool, and will represent sheep-shearing and the transport of the hales from the country bv motor-lorry. New Zealand’s great dairying industry will figure in the penny (red) stamp, the main feature of which will be the interior of a butter factory with one of the most modern churns at work and export packing operations going on in the foreground. For the twopence half-penny denomination, to be printed in blue, in accordance with international postal regulations, the Dominion’s sheep flocks are to be represented in a picturesque setting, while the iourpenny denomination, to be reproduced in mauve, will deal with the rapidly developing industry of fruitgrowing. The Dominion’s imports will be the subject of the sixpenny stamp which reproduces a wharf scene, where a liner is discharging some of the Dominion’s purchases from overseas. The main characteristic of our imports is suggested in a side-panel depicting the argosy of commerce under full sail, and appropriately entitled “British Industries.”

The stamps will be of the same shape and size as the recent Jubilee issue. They will be on sale on October 1 next, and will be withdrawn not later than October 31,