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extension and greater activity of Empire trade is the most hopeful means of stimulating demand in the world markets and of restoring a sound level of wholesale commodity prices."

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When I speak of the Empire, I am thinking, not only of the Dominions and India, but also of the Colonies where a keen desire exists for mutual trade with the whole Imperial connection. Colonial territories are situated mainly in tropical latitudes, and they mostly produce food and raw materials, buying manufactures in return. In recent months the Colonies have considerably extended both in range and area the preferences which have long been established as an important feature of policy, and their desire to play their part in fostering Empire trade is shown by the fact that these preferences are Empire wide ".

On our side the United Kingdom have recently granted further extensive preferences to the Colonies, a decision justified on material as well as sentimental grounds, since capacity to buy must depend on ability to sell. The value of Colonial Trade to the United Kingdom is shown by the fact that the proportion of United Kingdom exports taken by the Colonial Empire, which amounted to 7 per cent in 1924, has risen in the first quarter of 1932 to 11 per cent. A similar tendency is shown by the figures of the trade between the Colonies and the rest of the Empire. In 1930 the Colonies sold to the United Kingdom goods valued at £39,000,000 and to the rest of the Empire £20,000,000, while during the same year they bought from the United Kingdom £50,000,000 and from the rest of the Em- pire £46,000,000. It is the desire of the United Kingdom to see trade between the Colonies and the Dominions and India still further increased. We cordially welcome such arrangements as the agreement between Canada and the West Indies which has conferred benefits on both, and we shall hope that our discussions in Ottawa may do much to open up possibilities of mutual trading between the tropical and temperate regions of the Empire."

"We have made during the last few months a very intensive examination of the trade of the whole Empire, in the endeavour to find how we can help both our- selves and you, for despite clashes of sectional interest here and there we believe that the prosperity of the United Kingdom and that of all the other parts of the Empire are intimately linked together.

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13. The following resolution was adopted regarding Empire Content :—

"With regard to the determination of the percentage of Empire Content necessary to secure preferential tariff treatment, the Conference draws the attention of the several Governments of the Commonwealth to the importance of this subject, and recommends that each of the Governments of the Commonwealth should inves- tigate, as rapidly as possible, the standard of Empire Content which should be required by them for the import under preferential rates of the different classes of goods, bearing in mind the following principles :--

(a) That though it must rest with each Government to decide what standard it will require. a greater degree of uniformity through the Commonwealth is desirable;

(b) the standard required should not be such as to defeat or frustrate the intention of the preferential rate of duty conceded to any class of goods."

The following resolutions were adopted concerning Industrial Co-operation :---

This Conference, having examined the Report of the Imperial Economic Committee on Imperial Industrial Co-operation, finds itself in general agreement. with the tenor of the Report."

"The Report makes it clear that industrial production has developed and will continue to develop in the less industrialised parts of the Commonwealth. These developments involve changes in the economic structure both of the more indus- trialised and of the less industrialised countries; and the Conference notes with ap- proval the view of the Committee that: the object of co-operation is not, and must hot be, to arrest change, but wisely to direct and facilitate its course.'