IMPERIAL TRADE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18348, 14 March 1923, Page 10

IMPERIAL TRADE.

PROBLEM OF DEVELOPMENT.

CONFERENCE PRELIMINARY.

BUSINESS MEETING URGED.

The need for developing tho trade and industry of the British Empire was emphasised yesterday by the Hon. A. M. Myers, who arrived in Auckland by the Manuka from Sydney. " It was most desirable, Mr. Myers considered, especially in view of tho domestic political situation in some of the Dominions, that a conference of representatives of industry and commerce should be promoted at once, whose recommendations would be submitted to the subsequent conference of official heads of the countries concerned, and that their selections, so far as might be found practicable, should be left to the representative organisations that they themselves had created. In addition to trade, other matters to be discussed at the conference would be questions of emigration and settlement, and communications throughout the Empire. It was now generally recognised that the chief hope of adequate trade expansion in the near future lay in organising and developing the economic resources within the Empire, in order to secure mutual advantages to the Dominions and the Motherland. There would be the chance to discover a variety of enterprises that bv Imperial co-operation could bo successfully exploited. A conference composed of men of affairs asked to deal with the problem of developing the trade and industry of the Empire would produce a series of resolutions and suggestions possessing a practical value which might not attach to any resolutions on economic action emanating from a conference constituted on the traditional political lines. Business men would approach business questions from a purely business point of view, and produce practical recommendations. In so far as any proposals they might make would require Government action, their report could be considered by the normal Imperial and Economic Conference later in the year. Tho latter conference, on the other hand, would, for the first time in its histosy, have a definite expert report from practical men indicating the desires, opinions, and aspirations of the actual people who transact the business of the Empire. There were urgent matters to decide take, for instance, the position of the meat industry. National industries such as beef production were threatened and a question of policy must be decided upon as to whether it was going to be profitable for the cattle-raiser to carry on.' Were the Dominions to be driven out of the trade owing to the present position of low prices, which, apparently, was due to market manoeuvring rather than direct operation of laws of supply and demand? As the Dominions could export about two-thirds of the meat requirements of Britain, a policy viewed from an Imperial standpoint should be decided upon.