52

We meet in clays when the machinery of world commerce is out .of gear. International finance has broken down; the old-fashioned industrial life to which we have grown accustomed has undergone a change. We move toward a new economic order of things. Our part in fashioning it depends in large measure upon the outcome of this Conference. Since the prosperity of other years has left us we have been witness to the efforts made in many countries throughout this time of trial to recover the happiness and plenty which, despite intervening troubles, we yet should claim to be the birthright of us all. And these heroic efforts, because they failed or but in part succeeded, do not on that account commend themselves less warmly to us. They merely serve to show that recovery is beyond the strength of any single nation. Recently at Lausanne the nations of the Old World by a like unselfishness have laid the foundation of a better understanding and have exchanged old doubts and fears for a new confidence and trust. To those who, out of the seeming dissension of the earlier days of that Conference have brought agreement, we offer our tribute of sincere praise. And we rejoice that there the representatives of the motherland have maintained its tradition as a sure guide to whose wise counsel and direction the world will always be indebted. Lausanne demonstrates the force of united effort directed toward the achievement of a common purpose. We have a common purpose. We have a supreme desire to achieve it. And there can be no group of countries in the wide world so capable of united action as are the countries which comprise the Empire. Therefore we are equipped and ready for the task. It would be folly to pretend it is not a great one. It would not be British to turn aside because it is. Great though it may be, grave as are the difficulties, we cannot hesitate. We are bound in loyalty and self-interest to go forward, knowing as we must that our success means the beginning of a new and greater prosperity for ourselves, the Empire, and the world. We may take heart, for there is no task of which we are incapable. When we marshal the strength of the Empire, which is the sum total of its co-operating parts, we are invincible; provided each part brings to the whole its maximum contribution. None of us should come to this Conference asking that the others do for us what by every test we should do for ourselves. We must see to it that we are prepared to make some contribution to the whole, knowing that in that way only can we expect the whole to make some contribution to us. In that belief Canada in the last two years has clone as best she might to increase her power for self-service and for Empire service. Only the other day this Government concluded a treaty with our friends and neighbours, the United States of America, by which the St. Lawrence Waterway and the Great Lakes will be made into a great seaway through which the commerce of the Empire will be carried to the heart of this continent, and through which the products of this country will go out to all parts of the Empire. This waterway will be free to all ships of the Commonwealth, and I believe will be the sure means by which the parts of the Empire will be brought still closer to one another. These times of stress have found none among you lacking in determination to care for yourselves. Great Britain, confronted with changing world conditions, has by new means strengthened herself to meet -them, and by fiscal and financial re-adjustments has maintained her age-old power to withstand adversity. All parts of the Empire have been resolute and resourceful in the face of universal misfortune. We have done, each one of us, what we might to maintain our integrity and have not abandoned our national position in face-of those influences which threatened to destroy it. In this great world upheaval we have suffered, but we have not surrendered. The vital forces which have made us what we are, continue unimpaired. We have endured and fought back with all our might the economic surge which swept upon us. To-day we are come together, tested by tribulation, wiser through experience, bound one to the other as joint heirs of a great past and of a great future to be built upon the foundations of a new and enduring plan of Empire co-operation. For a great many years Colonial and Imperial Conferences have discussed the question of closer Empire assocation and have searched for a formula by which it might be brought about. Throughout these Conferences is to be found the evident desire for an improvement in Empire trade relationships through the general application of tariff preferences. At the Imperial Economic Conference held in London two years ago, Canada submitted what she conceived to be the basis of a plan lor closer economic association.