IMPERIAL TRADE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 52, 29 January 1938, Page 8

IMPERIAL TRADE.

REVISION OF AGREEMENTS. NO ADVICE RECEIVED. WELLINGTON, Jan. 28. The New Zealand Government has had no intimation at all of any conference being calied in London to discuss the revision of the Ottaw r a Agreements along the lines mentioned by a cablegram from Australia. This was made clear by the Prime Minister (Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage) in an interview this evening, and it appears that as far as New Zealand is concerned mystery surrounds the entire proposal. Frequent references to such a conference have been made in the Australian Press during the past few weeks, and yesterday’s cable message went so far as to announce the personnel of the Australian delegation. It was also stated that several officers of the Commonwealth would leave for Washington to make preliminary arrangements lor a commercial agreement with the United States.

“I can only repeat the statement I made when the matter was brought to my notice on a previous occasion, and say that the New Zealand Government has had no intimation at all of any conference of this sort,” said the Prime Minister when the cable message from Australia was referred to him. “We have received no invitation to any such conference, nor have we any knowledge of a meeting in London of the character suggested in the cable news from Australia.

“The authorities in London know the views of the New Zealand Government on the likely effects of New Zealand trade of a trade agreement between the United Kingdom and the United States of America,” added Mr Savage. “When the Minister of Marketing (Hon. W. Nash) and myself were in London last year the question of trade was discussed with the Imperial authorities from every point of view, and the British Government is fully acquainted with our ideas on the subject. Mr Nash also visited Canada and America to discuss trade questions with the people in those countries on his way back to the Dominion from Great Britain.”