HOUSE OF LORDS.

Hokitika Guardian, 3 May 1923, Page 3

HOUSE OF LORDS.

AUSTItALIAN ANI) N.Z. CARLE ASSOCIATION. IMPERIAL PREFERENCE. (Received this day at 11.45 a.m.) LONDON. -May 2. Lord .Marlborough, in the House ol Lords, raised the question of Imperial preference. The principle has been accepted by all parties that no Government dare remove the existing tariff. He asked if the Government contemplated the possibility of extending the existing preferences and also asked Government whether it were satisfied with the Empire Settlement Act. lie expressed the hope that the agricultural labourer would stay at home. There were thousands of artisans well capable of taking their places overseas.

Lord Airlie said the Dominions did not regard emigration as the solution of unemployment. The Government’s Empire development policy could not be fiillv carried out without Dominion co-operation. It would be a disaster to move more quickly than the Dominions were willing and ready to move. The present task of this country was to train part of the town population to adapt them to land work overseas. LONDON, April 2. Lord Long could not understand any serious hostility being offered to the policy of Imperial preference. If the Empire chose, ii could supply the whole, of our own requiiements. No one desired to see the British wage earners driven from the country, but there was a surplus which the Dominions could absorb. Lord Devonshire said that when the occasion arose the Government hoped to extend the principle of Imperial Preference, and also hoped that, in conjunction with the Dominions at the. Conference in October, to work out the methods for still lurther helping Imperial trade. The Government would lint hesitate to seek further powers for the extension of State aided migration. This was not a. measure of despair <ir a temporary expedient for grn] pling with the unemployment but this was the means of developing the Empire.

The Duke of Devonshire said that n. valuable and useful migration scheme had already been worked out, which, it was hoped, would be the preeurser of ether and wider ones.

The Earl of Beauchamp said that there would be a united Liberal opposition to Imperial preference it it entailed increased food costs in Britain. A'iseoiint Birkenhead said there v.as no prospect of trade revival in Europe within the next live years. -Many men accepted doles in Britain with bitterness. AVith organisation and adjustment it should be possible to overcome the English men s and women s impulse against leaving the country. It should not be beyond the Government's power to draft Britain’s unemployed to Hit’ Dominions, if man did not live by sentiment and the Empire would not I e kept together by a mutual eulogy ami rdoratii n of the Dominions, wlio had sacrificed much in giving ns preference and we must he prepared to add .something for them. At Diis stage the House rose.