EMPIRE COMMERCE

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 102, 27 October 1945, Page 9

EMPIRE COMMERCE

ROLE OF NEW ZEALAND

(Special P.A. Correspondent.)

LONDON, October 25,

The JNew Zealand delegates at the recent conference of the Federation of Chambers of Commerce of the British Empire were Messrs. S. Jacobs, who was' representative of the Associated Chambers of Commerce of New Zealand, W. G. V. Fernie, of Canterbury, and J. F. Johnston, of Auckland.

The conference sat in four committees, which prepared reports, all of which were adopted unanimously. One was on Imperial commercial relations, of which Mr. Fernie was a member, another on international payments, of which Mr. Jacobs was a member, a third on primary production and secondary industries, on which Mr. Johnston sat, and a fourth on communications. In addition to emphatically supporting Imperial preference and accepting the Bretton Woods proposals subject to a plenary session in four to five years to review the position, the Federation welcomed the establishment of a permanent international food and agricultural organisation. It considered that secondary industries must be based on sound economic considerations, remarking that Commonwealth countries should help. mutually in their promotion by establishing assembly or production units, interchange of selected technical skilled personnel, and closer personal contacts. It considers inter-State cable rates within the Empire a domestic matter which should not be subject to international discussion at the Bermuda Conference.

Mr. Jacobs said that he considered the greatest value of. such conferences was the personal contacts made. He remarked that the defence of Australia and New Zealand was not a local but an international matter. Defence in itself should not be made first priority in economic matters. He considered that the interlocking interests of Britain's and New Zealand's agriculture were not competitive, but reciprocal. The whole atmosphere of the conference showed the desire of all overseas delegates to link up again in trade with Britain as soon as posisble. ' .