WHAT THINKERS SAY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21542, 14 January 1932, Page 9

WHAT THINKERS SAY

ADVICE TO FARMERS TURNING POINT OF EMPIRE (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, December 7. Mr Neville Chamberlain (Chancellor of the Exchequer), at Newport: “While we are perfectly ready to enter into friendly discussion with any country, we can conclude no binding agreement until after the Ottawa Conference, at which we intend to investigate the whole subject of Imperial trading. If ever a conference may be said to be fraught with destiny, that is the one which may well prove to be a turning point in our long and glorious Imperial history. The ties that unite the different countries comprised in the Empire have now become so slight that unless we can find some material interest to strengthen them we may some day discover that they have become perilously slender. If ever they should pass, which God forbid, it would be a disaster, not only for the Empire, but for the whole world.” MR BENNETT’S OPTIMISM. Mr H. B. Bennett, the Canadian Prime Minister, in a farewell interview: “ 1 camp here for the good of my health. It has done my health good. But it has done my spirits much more good. lam going back now to tell my friends in Canada that the old British courage and enterprise have never been so conspicuous as they are to-day. You have your problems and your difficulties, but you are facing up to them with a clear-eyed, coolheaded refusal to be dismayed or baffled , that is worthy of the most splendid pages in British history. You are making your troubles into your opportunity—and what a glorious opportunity lies before us all in the development of this great Imperial heritage of ours. There is an immense field waiting there—for all the nations and statesmen of the Empire. We must not forget it amid the noisier and much less important problems that assail us. For it will, I am convinced, not only : prove to be the way out of our present difficulties, but an avenue leading to a prosperity and happiness such as we can scarcely imagine. The Ottawa Conference should be a turning point in our history.” FARMERS URGED TO ORGANISE. Sir John Gilmour (Minister of Agriculture), at the annual conference of the Scottish Unionist Association at Aberdeen, at which resolutions asking for safeguarding for farming were passed: “The agricultural community must set their minds, with as great a rapidity as they demand from the Government, to the question of better marketing. In the hands of agriculturists to-day lies a great responsibility. You have as a result of the Bill for the imposition of duties up to 100 per cent, on luxury imports of fruit, vegetables, and flowers going through Parliament, £7,000,000 or £8,000,000 worth of goods to be produced here. Under the Colorado Beetle Order there is shut out a further £1,000,000 worth of vegetables and potatoes. I ask you to realise that responsibility. You cannot have things given you by Parliament unless you are prepared to organise and come - to better marketing arrangements with the assurance that with that you will have some protection from unfair dumping.”