N.Z. DINNER

Hokitika Guardian, 17 April 1929, Page 3

N.Z. DINNER

BY SIB J. PARR

United Press Association. —By Electrii Telegraph.—Copyright.)

LONDON, April 16. Over three hundred guests attended the New Zealand Association s annua I liiinor. including Lord Plymouth, Sir Ba.sil Blackett. Sir Montague Norman, Sir James Ferguson, Sir Otto Xlcmycr. and Sir Thomas Inskip, the High Commissioners for Australia, South Africa, the Irish Free State, and Southern lllrdesia; and the AgentsGeneral for New South Wales, South Australia, and Qileenslanu.

Sir James Parr (New Zealand High Commissioner) proposed the toast ol “Our Guests.” He paid a tribute to Sir B. •Blackett, as Chairman of the new Communications Company, which was linking up the cables and the wireless throughout the Empire. In welcoming Sir G. Ryrie (Australian High Commissioner), he pointed out tluit the Commonwealth was forty times the' size of New Zealand, and vei the latter had generally managed to h .-crow money in London at one hall per cent, better than Australia did. Alluding to trade, he said that New Zealand had never known greater pros, perity than it had to-day. The trade of its mere one and a-half millions ol -./.v>yle had last year amounted to £l.oi ,(00,000. New Zealand’s pro. lorn was to find markets for the increasing volume of its products. Personally he still believed that the British was the best market.

Sir B. Blackett, in responding said that one of his earliest visits to Britain was to Bradford, where lie was most impressed with the need for the nationalisation of the wool trade. He believed that the producers of wool in \ustralia and New Zealand and the wool manufacturers in Britain could advantageously get together and arrange to deal with the increased production of wool and its manufacture throughout the Empire and world. He pointed out that during the seven years l>e fore the war, out of £454,000.0(K) which ijondon lent to the Empire, £188.000,000 went to Governments and municipalites; and £266.000,(00 to business concerns. Herein lay an opportunity to study Empire economics, for obviously the advances to business concerns generally more quickly yielded profits than did the advances to the Governments.

Sir T. Inskip, in proposing the toast of Sir Jas Parr, recalled that he lmd made two fortunes as a farmer and a. lawyer before lie was forty years of age, while he was as versatile a politician as Mr Winston Churchill. Sir James Parr, in responding, suggested that Sir T. Inskip, if he were unemployed a Iter too general election should write his biography.