AFTER DINNER

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10257, 8 June 1911, Page 5

AFTER DINNER

SPEECH BY SIR JOSEPH WARD.

THE CONFERENCE RECORD

(Received Last Night, 9.15 o'clock.)

LONDON, June 7

The Hon. A. Fisher, Sir Joseph Ward, and General Botha visited the Avonmouth docks. They were the guests of the Chamber of Commerce at a dinner. Sir Joseph Ward, in responding to the toast of the Prime Ministers of the Overseas Dominions, dealt with the close relationship of the Motherland, and the practical work of the Imperial Conference. It was of no use assembling, he said, unless they left a record of work, telling its tale in the future. He believed the present Conference would show a record of work which would be valuable to those attending the next Conference. He wanted to take the opportunity at • this meeting of representatives of commerce and shipping, to ask them to consider how to get rid of the detestable toll-bar between Britain and the Dominions, in the shape of the extortionate charges for every ton of cargo traversing the Suez Canal. If 'they desire to bring the distant por- | tions of the Empire closer, they must have the means of transport as cheap as possible. Continuing, Sir Joseph Ward said that a great shipping company had stated that £30,000 was imposed on one line of steamers traversing the Canal. Tho sum was equal to the whole payments made for officers and men. Was it not time that Britain and France, as owners of the Suez Canal, began to realise that over £1,000,000 was taken, as far as one partner was concerned, from the pockets of those, using the Canal, over and above a. dividend of three per cen on capital? It was extortionate. Ere long our American cousins, who were going to control the Panama Canal, would show that they had not made the mistake of putting a large bar against shipping, and the development of trade across the Pacific. On his motion the question was brought before tho last Conference, and he heartily endorsed the Hon. A. Fisher's efforts in the same direction at this Conference. It Mas a matter of exceptional importance in connection with perishable products. He concluded by urging the Motherland to co-operate with 'Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and secure the completion of a State-owned cable projected several years ago, of which the first link had been successfully laid across the Pacific to Canada.

General Botha emphasised the farreaching importance of the Imperial Government's decision to take the Dominions into its Conference in relation to external problems. This policy would greatly strengthen the cause of Imperial Unity.