BRITISH COMMONWEALTH

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 140, 16 June 1932, Page 8

BRITISH COMMONWEALTH

DEFECTS TO BE REPAIRED. HIGH COMMISSIONER’S VIEWS. LONDON, April 26. The High Commissioner, Sir Thomas Wilford, was one of the speakers at a luncheon given yesterday by the British Empire Service League in connection with Anzac Day celebrations. Major-General Sir Granville Ryrie presided and proposed the toast, “Those Who Took Part in the Dardanelles Campaign.” Field-Marshal Sir William Birdwood responded. The High Commissioner, proposing the toast of “His Majesty’s Government in Great Britain and Success to the Ottawa Conference,” said that the delegation that went to Ottawa to win was an enemy to the conference, because if one delegation won, some delegation must lose, and it would be unthinkable that any unit of this Commonwealth of Nations should go away from Ottawa licking its wounds. That must be guarded against. The fault to-day of the organisation known as the Commonwealth of Nations was that it had no common method, no co-ordination, and no common policy; three fatal defects in any organisation. They had to be cured, and he thought that the reciprocity of advantages might be considered the key to the situation. They heard a great deal about the difficulty of exchange, perhaps. He often wondered whether the question of credits, and not exchange, was not more to the point. With South Africa on the gold standard, with Canada on a dollar currency, and with New Zealand, Australia and Great Britain on sterling, perhaps if they forgot exchange for the time being and considered credit they might arrive at a solution of one of the greatest difficulties which now prevented the interchange of economic advantages between the component parts of the Commonwealth of Nations. He advised patience to those who wished to see the economic union of the British Empire brought about, by the Ottawa Conference—and that, at the bottom of their hearts, was the desire of all true Britishers. What they were going to do at Ottawa was to create a new background. He hoped that after that was done there would also come out, of the conference a per manent, advisory economic council. An arrangement at Ottawa was not enough; it must be carried on for all time, and there, must be constant liaison and constant co-operation between the commercial factors of the Empire.