CO129-541-4 Empire Products Fair- report 2-7-1932 - 16-3-1933 — Page 39

2 Anclosure.

39

MR OUTHORN'S SPRECH

Officer Administering the Government on Use of Empire Goods.

Addressing the gathering, Mr. Southom said:

I have to thank you

Kr. Braga, ladies and gentleman,

for the honour you have done me in asking me to open this the

first Empire Products Fair in Hongkong. It signifies the

Colony's contribution to the great effort now being made

throughout the British mpire to foster British Trade, I

should like at once to correct any impression that our

efforts to foster British Trade are in any way antagonistic

to other nations.

As British subjecte in a British Colony we are entitled

to consider our own fellow country men first for nature

has implanted in every right thinking man an instinctive

affection for his native land, and in these difficult days

our first duty lies towards our own people but we are

confident that in improved trade within the Empire lies one

of the main hopes of world regeneration. If we can restore

trade prosperity to the Empire its effect will spread far

beyond the confines of that simpåre and will go a long

way towards restoring that world-wide prosperity for whì ch

we have locked in vain for the last eighteen years. England

has just embarked on the greatest change of its fiscal

policy which it has seen for more than two generations

and it is the duty of every British subject to do his

utmost to make that policy a success.

Most of us were brought up in a Free Trade atmosphere

and we may find it difficult to attune our minds to the new

policy, but in loyalty to the momentous decisions of the

British Government - Cecisions taken only after the most

anxious