CLOSER TIES.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 57, Issue 244, 27 July 1937, Page 5

CLOSER TIES.

AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND. FEDERAL TREASURER’S VIEWS. (Per Press Association.) - - AUCKLAND, July 26. YiThe. need for greater sympathy, understanding, and friendship between Australia and New Zealand in these days of world troubles was emphasised by the Hon. R. G. Casey, treasurer of tlvei Australian Commonwealth, at a luncheon tendered to him in the Grand Hotel by the New Zealand Government. Mr Casey arrived in Auckland on his way back to Australia, from Great Britain, where he attended the Coronation ceremonies and the Imperial Conference. The Attorney-Gen-eral, (the Hon. H. G. R. Mason) presided, and other guests of honour were Sir George Wales (Lord Mayor of Melbourne), Mr J- J- Poynton (Lord Mayor of Perth), and Senator J. G. Duncan-Hughes, of South Australia. 1 “I am not going to enlarge on the invents of the Imperial Conference,” ’said Mr Mason, “but merely to remark ’that those who attended learned much that is of benefit to the Empire.” Mr Mason added that New Zealand had long passed the stage when it was considered a suburb of Melbourne. Actually New Zealand was largely settled from Victoria in the early days, such settlers originally coming from England to the Victorian goldfields. Shipping went direct from New Zealand to Melbourne, and much of the early New Zealand legislation was modelled on that ruling in Victoria. It was, then, natural, that there should have been, a strong community of interest between New Zealand; and Victoria, and although those times had passed, the need existed for goodwill between the Dominion and" Commonwealth.

In acknowledging the greeting of the Government, Mr Casey said that on his visit abroad he first attended the international sugar conference, at which 22 producing nations were engaged. Australia was particularly interested as an exporter of 400,000 tons a year to Canada and Great Britain. So also was Fiji. It had seemed at the outset that the conference was doomed to failure, but to his great surprise it was a success, and as a result for the next five years the World’s supplies will be rationalised, and prices established. The Coronation was an astounding spectacle, possibly the greatest ever seen of its kind, and it expressed sympathy with the Crown and the strength of the Imperial idea. .He saw a good deal of the New Zealand Prime Minister (Mr Savage), the Minister for Finance (Mr Nash), and the High Commissioner (Mr Jordan). He had many meetings with Mr Nash on Pacific shipping problems. “We in New Zealand and Australia cannot afford to be forced/- off the Pacific by foreign shipping,” declared Mr Casey. “It is essential that Canada and Fiji should be joined to us by an Empire line.”