WELLINGTON TOPICS

Hokitika Guardian, 26 September 1932, Page 2

WELLINGTON TOPICS

THE OTTAWA CONFERENCE. MR COATES’ SURVEY. (Our own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, Sept. 21. Mr Don Bradman, the greatest of all great living cricketers, having been given a tumultuous reception by his small and large worshippers on the Wellington wharf on Sunday, and Mr Albert Russell, the most popular of all song leaders, having crowded and ovtr-crowded the Town Hall on ’Monday, it properly fell to the lot of the Right Hon. J. G. Coates K i who had chivalrously made way for.--the other two travellers, to address another large gathering last night. Needless to say the leader of the New Zealand delegation at the Ottawa- Conference had greater tilings to deal with than had his two distinguished travelling companions. He reminded his audience of the special circumstances that had made the Conference from which he had just returned a distinctive one among those that had been held periodically since the Golden'Jubilee of Queen Victoria forty five years ago. It was a. span which set three generation thinking.

A REVOLUTION. Without unnecessary preamble Mr Cbates passed on. to the great problems that had been attacked and, he hoped, in a large and satisfactory measure solved at Ottawa. “The further you travel,” he told his audience,’ “the niore you are impressed by the range and severity of the existing .depression. Further, an altogether new position had been created before, the conference met by thp hew fiscal policy in Great Britain. For the first time for generations the Mother Country had adopted a tariff which extended tp a, great range of.-imports. This meant that for the first time an Imperial' -'Conference was able to consider a- uniform policy for reciprocal tariff preferences.” Mr Delates,' quite- itia-timally, emphasised the fact that . New . Zealand had secured substantial, advantages by its representation at Ottawa, but he did not assume that those ajdvtentrges were to .be obtained without the Dominion making concessions from .its own side. That would be absurd.

SUGGESTIONS. ' M r Coates .did not suggest nor imply that the Mother Country while making concessions to the Dominions would not look for concessions for itself... The Conference, he said, was a pooling of suggestions and opinions. In March.'of thisyear Great Britain Fad imposed a - general tariff of ten per cent! on imports. Temporarily it had excepted Nfew Zealand from that tariff, but the' exemption held good only until'- November 15 next. ‘ lfroin' that date Now Zealand butter, cheese, fruit and many other exports would Have become subject to the impost duty of ten per cent, on entering the Home market; but Article one of the 'Ottawa Agreement provides that the greater part of the imports concerned should be exempt from import duty for five years. Mjr Coates could not at the moment discuss the nature of the concessions New Zealand is making to the Mother .Country, but it is fairly safe to say they are not exorbitant.

AMERICA'S REARING;In the course of his very interesting address Mr Coates made a" passing allusion to the attitude of the United States and its leaders at the present time. From his short contact with the American people, hi© said, he could see that the .opinion in the States was undergoing a profound change. They were beginning to realise as they never had done before that they could not make progress in isolation. They were taking account of the fact that other nations than theirs were moving ahead though it might be a different way. Another change in public thought in America that was apparent, was the recognition by the great republic of the fact that it couil'd no longer isolate itself from foreign affairs and at the same time figure as the mistress of the universe; If America aspires to continued progress it must move with the rest of the world.