INTER-IMPERIAL TRADE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20725, 19 November 1930, Page 11

INTER-IMPERIAL TRADE.

PREFERENCE QUESTION.

HOW BRITAIN HAS GAINED.

POLICY OF THE CONSERVATIVES. By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright. (Received November 18, 5.5 p.m.) LONDON, Nov. 17. Speaking in the House of Commons today the Prime Minister, Mr. Mac Donald, said tho debate on (he Imperial Conference had best bo deferred until the report of the proceedings was tabled.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department, Mr. G. M. Gillett, said the figures for 1929 showed that Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Ireland gave British goods tariff preferences representing £15,000.000. In the same 12 months Britain gave the Dominions preferences to a value of £3,500,000.

In the course of a speech at Harrow Sir H. Page Croft, Conservative member for Bournemouth, said ho could emphatically tell the Dominion Prime Ministers that tho Conservative Party was unanimous in its support of Imperial preferences. That unanimity was unprecedented in its history.

Mercifully within a year there would be an Economic Conference at Ottawa, when he hoped the Conservatives would be in office with a mandate to save the Empire from the threatened disruption. It was for the electorate absolutely to ensure that Britain should clasp hands with her Dominions across the seas and establish the trade partnership which Mr. MacDonald had wantonly refused.