EMPIRE CONGRESS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23200, 21 November 1938, Page 13

EMPIRE CONGRESS

PARLIAMENT MEMBERS . f CONFERENCE IN DOMINION PREPARATIONS FOR 1940 [BY TELEGRAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION] "WELLINGTON. Sunday Formal invitations to send delegates to New Zealand in 1940 for the conference of the Empire Parliamentary Association will be sent this week to all branches of the association. To meet the convenience of Legislatures in the various ports of tho. iMnpirc it is proposed to hold the conference about the middle of October It. will bo the first conference of the association held in the Dominion and a special committee has been appointed by the Cabinet to make the necessary arrangements. Preliminary plans for the conference were discussed early this year, when several delegates from oversens branches, who had attended Mte sesquicentenary anniversary celeb: - :'.- tions in New South Wales were visiting New Zealand. » Branches of the association in the overseas Parliaments of the Empire will 1m invited to send more than 70 delegates in all. The numbers to be invited are as follows: —Parliament of the United Kingdom, 17 delegates; Parliament of Canada, nine; Provincial Parliaments of Canada, seven; Australian Federal Parliament, nine; State Parliaments of Australia, eight; Union of South Africa, seven; Central Legislature of India, six; Burma, one; Southern Rhodesia, one; Ceylon, one; Northern Ireland, one; Barbados, one; Jamaica, one; .Isle of Man, one; Bermuda, one; Bahamas, one; Mauritius, one. A stay of 28 days in the Dominion by the visiting delegates is contemplated. The conference is expected to last from three to four days. The remaining 24 days will be occupied in travel in the Dominion. The value of such a conference was referred to by the Prime Minister, Mr. Savage, in an interview at the weekend. The very constitution of the Empire Parliamentary Association would commend itself to most people, representing as it did the Parliaments of the Empire, he said. In these days when so many big problems were facing the world it seemed most opportune that New Zealand should take advantage of the Centennial to invite the branches of the association to hold a conference in the Dominion. The conference would be helpful to the Dominion if only because it would enable the British representatives to obtain first-hand knowledge of New. Zealand conditions. : .