Let us take some examples of that. It is a fact, as all of you in this Jaudience know better than I do, that we have immense commercial and {financial interests in China. They are supposed by the most recent compulation to be valued at something like £300,000,000 of investments, and thereby is no doubt—I am sure that my friend His Excellency on my right will not mind my saying this—that there are some unsatisfactory features at the present time about the position of those investments. Well now, if you were {9 {reat this as being an isolated case, if China were the only country in the world in which we had. £300,000,000 of investments, the lonly country in the world in which. we had interests, the problem would, be_an easy one.
But T wonder if everyone round, {these tables realizes that if you go across the Pacific to South America you will find an exactly similar state of affairs, except that our investments fare greater. I believe that British investments in South America total between £400,000,000 and £500,000, 000. There again things are not too smooth, og those who have had investments in those countries of recent years know.
Therefore I say, although it may ive prophesying hard things, you cannot expect of this or any' other British Government that there will not be diMtculties for British trad and for British finance all over world in the circumstances of to-day. You cannot suppose that any one quarter of the world, however important it may be to our trade, is notice-tably more important than' another.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.