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the prosperity of the world and thereby improve the standard 
of living, If we can do that, there is no possible reason why, 
as you develop your Dominion Empire and create a greater 
flow of trade between yourselves and the outposts of the 
Empire, you cannot also increase your foreign trade. There 
seems to me to be a suggestion that as you increase your 
Dominion trade, you will have to cut off your foreign trade. 
That statement I challenge emphatically. There is no reason 
whatever why you should do that at all. (Hear, hear.) 
Gentlemen, that is one point I want to put to you, and 
I want your consideration of it. There are many other things I 
would like to put to you, but time prevents it. (Cries of “Go 
on.”) Might I just put one or two? There is this point, first 
of all, leaving what I have been talking about altogether. We 
are told very often that the Dominions ought to be absorbing 
a very much greater number of migrants within their borders. 
Personally I think the idea of absorbing migrants has been 
distinctly overdone during the last two or three years. It has 
been used as a political party cry at both ends of the world, 
I venture to suggest, that there has not been enough thought 
given to what you are going to do with them when you get 
them. In Australia, we are determined that we are not going 
to continue on those lines. We will only absorb migrants 
that we can give a fair opportunity to, when they get there, 
to live decent and happy lives, but at the same time we do 
not want to stop the flow of our migrants; we want to 
increase the flow very much, and this is the side of the 
question I want to put to you as business men. I came out 
of the ranks of business men, and I have had the good fortune 
to know many of them intimately, and to talk these questions 
over with them, and they are always coming to me with 
good advice about developing the country and absorbing 
more people and generally how to make it a paradise. 
Apparently they seem to think that I, as the head of the 
Government with the assistance of my ministers, have 
the genius of all the ages; that we are going to produce 
all the schemes by which these things can be done, and 
most of them appear to recognise no responsibility to give 
a hand themselves. I have put to some of these business 
people that I am closely in touch with, and who represent 
Australian interests, the idea that perhaps they have a 
little responsibility in this question, and I have told them 
that if they will put their great business ability at my 
service, if they will consult together, and if they will 
produce to me any great scheme which they claim will 
be able to assist our development, which will enable 
us to absorb a greater number of migrants, I will give it all