OTTAWA BENEFITS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 July 1939, Page 5

OTTAWA BENEFITS

AFFIRMED BY BRITISH MINISTERS SPEECHES AT COMMERCE CONGRESS. CONFIDENCE EXPRESSED IN OUTLOOK. By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright. (Received This Day, 10.20 a.m.) LONDON, July 17. The Secretary for .the Dominions (Sir Thomas Inskip), opening the Empire Chamber of Commerce Congress, which is al tended by three hundred delegates from all parts of the Empire, said Ottawa remained the keystone ol' the British Commonwealth’s economic system and bad undoubtedly stimulated the United Kingdom’s trade, for which, even if it had not solved all and perhaps had created new problems, Britain • was grateful. The agreements at Ottawa had enabled Britain to offset the contraction of foreign trade caused by economic nationalism, but this had been achieved-with-out the exploitation of any part of the Empire. Earl Dudley in his presidential address, said the world was still erroneously concentrating on the problem of how .to increase production, whereas the twentieth century’s greatest problem was how to increase consumption. Earl Dudley criticised the backwardness of Empire air services and recalled the advocacy of night flying by the Wellington Congress of 1936, but, he said, the Air Minister was still pondering. Earl Dudley presided at a Congress luncheon in the Grocers’ Hall. Mr Malcolm MacDonald (Colonial Secretary) in proposing the toast of the Empire’s commerce, referred to the present artificial devices for restricting markets, current political unrest and fear of war, with a consequent paralysis of international trade. Nevertheless, he said, there had been an immense expansion of Imperial trade, which had partly counteracted other losses. This sprang from the Ottawa agreements, but a more fundamental cause was that the countries of the Empire did not regard each other with suspicion and preserved their markets for each other. Despite this year of “non-stop crisis,” the Empire’s prosperity would further expand if confidence among the nations of Europe could be restored.