COMMERCE CONGRESS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9596, 16 September 1909, Page 5

COMMERCE CONGRESS.

THE SYDNEY GATHERING.

PREFEREN'iIAL TRADE.

Received September 15, 9.45 p.m. SYDNEY, September 15.

Mr Davies (London), in moving the preferential resolution, said that this was the first occasion upon which the London Chamber had formally given its official assent to such a resolution Canada offered to treat the Mother Country even more generously than she was doing at present, if Britain could offer quid pro quo, but the trouble was that" as their fiscal system stood at present they had nothing to offer. They were in the same position in regard to all other nations. They had nothing/ to fight with, and before they could consider such a proposal as comes from Canada they must alter their fiscal system. If one looked at the result of the various elections one could not disguise the fact that public opinion in England, no matter what might be said to the contrary, was rising by leaps and bounds in favour of au alteration of the system. Their great object should be to become like that glorious country, United States—self supporting. They should seek to obtain their own goods from their own kith and kin. It was for this reason that the London Chamber had tome to the conclusion that protection and reciprocati&n were necessary between ali peoples living under the British flag. Britain mu.t protect the commerce of the Empire for the people of the Empire. Prolonged cheering greeted the mention of the name of Mr Joseph Chamberlain, and Mr Davies read a letter from Mr Chamberlain to the Congress, in which he stated: —"I have no doubt that you wiil find the Australians ready to listen favourably to what you have to tell them. I wish very much I were still able to take an active part in the promotion of what I believe to be the greatest movement, in our own interest and their own, which I have seen for fifty years. Ido not doubt that that policy will win at the next election."