EMPIRE PREFERENCES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 716, 16 July 1929, Page 11

EMPIRE PREFERENCES

BRITISH GOVERNMENT MAY DELAY IMPERIAL CONFERENCE (Australian and N.Z. Press Association J Reed. 11 a.m. LONDON, Monday. In the House of Commons. Mr. Arthur Ponsonby, Parliamentary Secretary for the Dominions, said that he had received a cablegram from Australia regarding the Imperial preference proposals, but a frank interchange of views with the Prime Minister would be impossible if the contents were communicated to the House. The “Daily Herald's” political correspondent states that there is good reason for believing that the British Government intends to delay action in connection with the abolition of Empire preferences until the matter has been discussed by the Dominions at the Imperial Conference, which now only awaits the fixing of the date and venue. Discussing Lord Melchett's plea for free trade within the Empire, the “Morning Post” says:—“We desire to say nothing to discourage Lords Melchett and Beaverbrook, hut they will find difficulty in persuading the Dominions entirely to sweep away in our favour tariffs upon which they depend both for revenue and for the protection of their young industries. What we had hoped for was more modest, and to the Dominions less alarming—namely, a continuous widening of the present system of preferential trade. “We suggest to Lords Melchett and Beaverbrook that while they are arguing for something grandiose, we are in peril of losing something of such value that other nations would give their eyes to possess it. W r e enjoy a favoured position in the most hopeful and most expansive markets of the world. What that advantage will be worth when these vast territories are more closely populated and fully developed goes beyond our arithmetic.”