EMPIRE RELATIONS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22098, 31 October 1933, Page 10

EMPIRE RELATIONS

CONFERENCES IN CANADA ADDRESS BY MR W. D. STEWART (Per United Press Association.) AUCKLAND, October 30, Addressing the local branch of the Institute of Pacific Relations Mr Downie Stewart, M.P., said that the two Canadian conferences involved no responsibility on the part of any. country or Government. They were largely informative and educational. The difficulty was that after such an exchange of views and information it was hard for the few people forming the national delegation to impart the point of view of other nations to the whole body of their fellow countrymen when they returned home. The conference on Empire Relations at Toronto had emerged from the earlier conference of the Institute of Pacific Relations at Kyoto. Both at Toronto and at Banff the heart of all the many problems discussed had been how to secure peace. At Banff the principal subject had been the economic complications in the Pacific. At Toronto, everything had led up to the 4 question how the various parts of the Empire could co-operate and consult in order to form a common policy expressed directly or through the League of Nations toward the rest of the world in order to promote and maintain peace. “ I wish to correct an erroneous impression created by a condensed cable report of some remarks I made in Canada. It was made to appear that I had spoken disparagingly of the League of Nations, and the president* of the Auckland branch of the League of Nations Union has written criticising my alleged statement. Nothing was further from my thoughts than to disparage the League. What I did say was that at Toronto some delegates were inclined to treat the conference as if it were entirely a League of Nations conference and not primarily a conference of the members of the British Commonwealth. In fact they spoke as if the British conference had merged its existence with the League. I said it was true that the British Commonwealth has the same objective of world peace and must work through the League, but that the primary duty of the conference was to discuss means for securing the cooperation and consolidation of a common Empire policy in the first place, and to recognise that the League was not yet so strongly established that we could dispense with the tower of strength of the British Empire. Since then Germany has withdrawn from the League, and there are now four great Powers outside the League—Japan, Russia, America and Germany. In these circumstances we have to be cautious, and while giving all support to the League still maintain the Commonwealth in case the League; should fail. “Another cable message suggested that I had been scaremongering at Banff as to the danger of war in the Pacific. Cablegrams are necessarily brief and usually state conclusions without giving the train of thought that leads up to them. What I. pointed out was that while minds were concentrated on the peril of war in Europe it might be a fact that far more effective causes of war were operating in the Pacific. In Europe conflicts seemed to us to be based largely on old feuds and rivalries with no economic complications as in the East. Among these complications were congestion of population, lack of opportunity for migration upon which the conference was unanimously agreed, lack of opportunity for full industrialisation, and the uselessness of birth control as a remedy seeing that the surplus millions were already there.” The results of the Banff conference had been largely negative, said Mr Stewart. The statements of fact had been clear and impartial, but there had been neither the time nor the opportunity to evolve a solution. This conference had passed on to the statesmen and diplomatists of the world at Toronto. Emphasis had been placed upon seeing that co-operation and consultation between the various parts of the Empire should be in accordance with the policy of the League of Nations and toward peace. The discussions revealed a clear line of demarkation between the ideas of the different Empire countries, regarding their relationship to the Commonwealth. These differences were in the main geographical. Canada, which was virtually immune from attack with the North Pole on one side and a great, powerful and friendly nation on the other, felt the necessity for defence, especially naval defence and cooperation, .to be remote and unreal. Indeed, the feeling on this subject in the various countries might be represented .by colouring a map in a gradation of tones corresponding with their vulnerability to attack. New Zealand felt herself to be in an extremely dangerous and vulnerable position and attached great importance to her British connection and to the navy.

JAPANESE POINT OF VIEW

ADDRESS BY MR W. NASH EXPANSION OP INTERNATIONAL TRADE. (Special to Daily Times.) AUCKLAND, October 30. Addressing the local branch of the Institute of Pacific Relations, Mr W. Nash, M.P., head of the New Zealand delegation to the Banff Conference, said he did not propose to go into the whole situation in the Pacific from the Japanese point of view, but into only one phase of it. In 1913 the world’s cotton production had been 20,900,000 bales, and the consumption 21,963,000 bales. In 1931 the production had been 25.800.000 hales, and the consumption 22.402.000 bales. What was more, there had been over-production for four or five years prior to 1931. Whereas ■in 1913 the consumption in Britain —in other words the manufacture into textiles—was 4,044,000 bales to Japan’s 1.435.000 bales,- in 1913 the figures were 1,990,000 and 2,575,000 bales respectively. Thus Japan’s production of cotton textiles had increased more than 80 per cent, while Britain’s had fallen to less than half, and Japan’s output was larger than Britain’s. Over the same period the world consumption of cotton had remained practically stationary although populations had increased and so had the production of raw cotton. There was much agitation, particularly in Europe, against Japanese methods of capturing trade, and it was declared that the conditions in Japanese mills made competition unfair and uneconomic.

Then there was the question of land and population. Japan, with 50 per cent, more territory than New Zealand, had a population 40 times as great. Her subjects were denied access to the United States, Canada, and Australia, and the Customs laws of New Zealand had been so written that the Japanese did not even think of coming to this country. They said that in order to raise their standard of living to the Western level they must have territory into jvhich to expand. They wanted access to raw materials which they might manufacture into goods, which, in turn, they could send out and thereby build up credits to enable them to purchase foodstuffs. Here they met with tariff barriers raised by those who said

that the low Japanese standard of living meant'unfair competition. The natural reply to this was that if Japan were denied access to land, materials, and markets, her standard of living must remain stationary. . “ I affirm this truth,” continued Mr Nash, “ that where there are peoples of equal virility, mental efficiency, and vision, it is impossible to keep one at a lower level than the others. What applies to nations applies to individuals. All are entitled to the same things that make life full. I believe the only way out of the world’s impasse is by commodity agreements. I hold that no monetary solution alone will suffice,” said Mr Nash, in conclusion. “We must find out what we can produce, go to others who need it, offer it to them, and say wo w r ill take all we can of what you have to offer either directly or through some indirect channel. I believe that the more we can offer to take from the others the more we shall be aide to induce them to take from us. At present we are trying to work on a limitation. We cannot succeed that way. We can only succeed by an expansion of international trade, by putting our own house in order, and then deciding how we can increase our trade with other nations. If there is a menace in the East we can overcome it in the same way by finding out what we can sell and what they need. At the conferences I met men and women who were prepared to state the truth without bias, and let it be its own advocate. In that way I believe fine work is being done for the cause of international well-being.”