IMPERIAL IMPOSTURE

Evening Post, Issue 89, 17 April 1933, Page 5

IMPERIAL IMPOSTURE

(To the Editor;) Sir,—Mr. Dpidge has neither answered my letter : nor accepted my challenge to engage in a public debate. Instead he has chosen to favour the Wellington public with a restatement of. what he, is, pleased to call the Beaverbrook -plan 'of ;Enipii;o Free Trade.' It is scarcely" necessary to remind your readers that' .about thi# alleged plan there is nothing either novel or. original, In reality the . credit fo originating it, if there can be any credit in connection with such a crazy crotchet, belongs; not to Lord Beaverbrook, .but to Mr. Joseph Chamberlain. Just thirty, years, ago, when Lord Beaverbrook was still Mr. Max Aitken of Nova Scotia, Mr. Chamberlain was ' entertaining' "^Primrose dames and ' music-hall 'patrons with speeches -on .Imperial -preference. Mr. Doidge's patron.is merelyi carrying on itha "crusade" under a new name, but the policy and objective are the.same—under the pretence of a' deep desire to cultivate the friendship of ''the family;?' to restoro in England that fiscal folly which brought her to the brink of revolution in 1840, from which she was saved by, the statesmanship of those peerless leaders—Richard Cobden, John Bright, Rotiert Peel, and William Ewart Gladstone. ' The best commentary on the threadbare sophistries furbished up by Mr. Doidge is found' in the recital of a few contemporaneous facts. Recently, th« Prince of Wales paid two. visits to Latin. America. Incidentally, he went down the Morrho Velio quartz mine in Peru, tha deepest mine in the world, owned and controlled almost entirely by British investors. The cable told us more recently of the visit to England of the Argentina Trade Delegation, and doubtless most of us have read the extremely cordial welcome extended them by the Prince. Then there,was the British Trade Exhibition at Copenhagen. Against this excellent expression of international courtesy, the.. Beaverbrook Press' maintained a vendetta.; Nevertheless, the exhibition was opened by the Prince of Wales, who made the journey to Denmark\by aeroplane for the purpose: Doubtless his Royal Highness acted on the advice of responsible Ministers in all this, and we know, of course, that if Lord Beaverbrook had his way, short shrift would be given the MacDonalds, the Baldwins, and other timorou* time-servers who mistake timidity for responsibility, and who persist in turning a deaf ear to the Beaverbrook;counsels of international strife. But there are ,omens even more significant. For; example, I remember that not long since the Mayor ' of Copenhagen paid a visit to Manchester, when he was given a civic reception, and the Mayor of Manchester spoke in terms the most felicitous about Denmark and her orderly and industrious inhabitants. Incidentally, he referred to the excellence of Danish products, making special mention of the popularity of Danish butter in England, and he added that Britain and her smaller neighbour would ever remain friends. Now, every right-minded person, whatever his country or his politics, will rejoice at such manifestations <,bf international goodwill, and assuredly' he will reprobate every attempt to impair it, even under the pretext of promoting.;lmperial' solidarity. In reality, Lord Beaverbrook belongs to that remote past, pictured so vividly in the pages of Gibbon, when tho Roman Imperialist scorned every foreigner, even though he were a Socrates or a Pericles, as a barbarian. There is at least this much to be said for "the heathen in his blindness," however: He wa| in gooi faith.—l am, etc., ' P. J. O'REGAN. April 11. *

There is more solid comfort for Mr. Mac Donald in the virtual acceptance of the Four-Power Pact by all the Powers concerned which was announced just before he sailed. The