REPRESENTATION AT OTTAWA

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 181, 24 March 1932, Page 4

REPRESENTATION AT OTTAWA

It is, perhaps, impossible to exaggerate the importance to the whole Empire of the forthcoming economic conference at Ottawa. Certainly no gathering of Imperial representatives has ever been held which offered such an opportunity to the Dominions individually. This, in part, is a result of their altered status following the arrangements made at the last Imperial Conference in London and recently implemented in the Statute of Westminster. Under the terms of the Statute, the great Dominions have become sisters and partners of the Mother Country in the British Commonwealth, rather than the daughters, tbe-y had previously been proud to acknowledge themselves. As partners, their views and wishes must necessarily carry greater weight with the British Government. That this is realised at Home is obvious in the statements from time to time made regarding the conference by British statesmen. But this aspect, though important, is not the chief reason why Ottawa will be so fraught with opportunity. Previously the British representatives have attended Imperial gatherings held fast to the shackles of a rigid fiscal policy possessing no elasticity and from which no departure of any importance was possible. The doors of Britain's ports must be kept wide open to the goods of the whole world, whether raw materials, primary products, or manufactures. No preferences beyond a somewhat shadowy thing termed "Most favoured nation" treatihent, which in certain cases was accorded foreign countries, were permissible, and all suggestions of tangible preferences for Dominion products, though often received sympathetically enough by the British delegates themselves, were certain to be finally rejected with expressions of regret and a pious phrase or two about the inviolability of the British people's free breakfast table. Now, however, the whole situation is changed and in this change lies this Dominion's, and indeed, the whole Empire's greatest hope. For the first time in history the Mother Country will go to a family conference as. free to negotiate on trade questions as are her partner States. Forced at last, with her back to the wall, by the pressure of a protectionist world, which neglected no opportunity to take advantage of her obstinate adherence to a worn-out faith ; to a policy which had, under the changed conditions of the post-war world, become actively dangerous, to recognise that, however reluctantly, she must conform, if only in self-defence, Great Britain has changed her policy. Her delegates will therefore meet those from the Dominions on an equal footing as regards liberty of action on trade questions. Equally important, they will take to the conference table a newly awakened sense of the possibilities of extensive inter-Imperial co-operation as a means of building up the British Commonwealth and assuring its future security and progress. This, then, is the opportunity for which New Zealand and her sister Dominions have worked and waited so long and the country must see that it is not neglected or lost. To this end, the strongest possible delegation must be sent to Ottawa, composed not only of politicians, but including, if possible within its personnel, certainly as fuily accredited advisers, men of the very first calibre drawn from commerce and industry, whose expert knowledge and experience may guide the Dominion's delegation in the difficult negotiations which they will have to conduct. A realisation of this need is evident in the offers of two of the Dominion's great exporting industries, dairying and meat production, to make available at their own expense, the services of their leading experts. Similar recognition of the requirements of the situation is suggested in a question recently asked in the British House of Commons, whether it was intended to attach expert representatives of business to the British delegation. It is to be hoped, therefore, that the New Zealancl Government will take advantage of the offers made by the Dairy and Meat Boards and 'accept the assistance which they so wisely offer.