Wednesday, March 22, 1967

one hundred and fourteen miles and yet never run over. I thought it might be of interest to you, Sir, and the House to mention that.

L. George Dewar: What is the name of the dam? Frank Myers. The Hoover Dam. Walter R. Shaw: It’s quite a dam.

Frank Myers: Now I will just take time to mention one more and that is we were taken to a ranch out in Alberta, the “Copper Thorn Ranch”. My what a sight that day! The man and his wife and two or three other hands rounded up his herd of cattle and I said to him, “How many have you got?” and he said, “I am not sure; there is around twenty to twenty-five hundred.” So that was a large herd and they were very nice people. The very best of Hereford cattle.

Then we came back to Ottawa and we went into Conference there. This was a wonderful experience for me along with my honourable friend just to hear those delegates, of which there were one hundred and sixty-five from forty different coun- tries, just telling the story of their own particular country. There were chiefly three parts of discussion that took place. First was about Rhodesia. and Vietnam. and aid. Those were the chief, the three chief topics. One can hardly realize until you are there to hear those people. And the way those poor delegates appealed to the de- veloped countries. I said to some of them after. “You are such small countries why don’t you amalgamate?” I wasn’t a friend of theirs very long after that. They said, “No, we love our country no matter how small.” But they wanted to be protected and it seems very unfortunate that although they are in the Commonwealth of Na- tions, very unfortunate that they are so backward. Whether they are too proud and they have not the wide open spaces that we are accustomed to, I don’t know. .

_ Now a very fitting discussion took place among the delegates and the British delegates about Rhodesia. You all realize thatRhodesia is a little country all sur- rounded by other countries and most of the delegates whether they didn’t under- stand or not, they became very angry, veryfbitter about England trying to use economic sanctions against Rhodesia. Until after a while Lord Sheppard explained the situation and he said that the United Kingdom never governed Rhodesia. Rho- desia was governed by what was called a British South African Country. So, there- fore. they had their own militia. their own police, their own civil service, and it would be an impossibility for England to go in to try and overrule Ian Smith’s minority government. But the people themselves in Rhodesia. they with a South African Union, they had a plebiscite nearly two years ago and they decided that they wouldn’t and they are by themselves. But they are all intermixed— interlocked together all of those smaller inside countries withy them. In other words apparently they rely so much on Rhodesia. Rhodesia is a pretty productive country. chiefly agriculture. To give you an idea, in 1964 Rhodesia produced for export 50,000 tons of tobacco. That’s a lot of tobacco, and last year that dwindled to 7,000 tons. In other words the income of Rhodesia dropped by 20%. and those other countries were afraid that if economic sanctions were used against Rhodesia they themselves would be hurt. To illustrate that in Zambia, and what is the other country there? 170,000 workers from Malawi work in Rhodesia and this delegate said, “What would happen to our 170,000 people there, if they get out of work and come home and no work for them”. This would place a heavier burden on the economy of their own country.

Well I don’t wish to be long on this but I want to, when the Premier wanted areport I thought the least I could do is give a small report.

Now the next was Vietnam and that is a long country and it is divided in the middle. In 1954 they became dissatisfied and unrest there themselves according to the delegates, and in 1954 they invited the United States to send troops there to just keep order. They sent five hundred troops and since then it was built up and they were very much afraid that if war continues there in Vietnam it will end up in a world conflict of which the are very unhafipy about because North Vietnam is getting the aid, as they said rom China and ussia. Well they all decided that the best thing that could be done there in order to bring peace would be around the conference table. They all decided that. I was very pleased to hear the last few days.that some effort has been put forth for something along that line.

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