6 OCTOBER 1923, Page 2

On Tuesday the -Imperial Economic Conference was .opened by the

President of the Board of Trade, Sir Philip Lloyd-Graeme. The three broad questions laid before the Conference were Empire -settlement, financial co-operation and Imperial Preference. Sir Philip dwelt -upon the shattering effects of the War, but founded a certain optimism on the fact that Great Britain during the years of -depression which followed the Franco- -German War nearly doubled her inter-Imperial trade. That great development, we may remark in passing, was not secured by means of Preferential Tariffs. Once more the Empire, deprived of some of its foreign markets, must intensively cultivate its own.

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