TO MAINTAIN EMPIRE

Hokitika Guardian, 20 April 1923, Page 2

TO MAINTAIN EMPIRE

MOTIVE OF BRITISH POTJC’Y. AU.STHAUAN AND N . 7.. CAULK ASSOCIATION. LONDON, April Mb Colonel Aincvy, speaking at the .Junior Constitutional Club adumbrated the Government's policy relating to tariff preference, migration, settlement, trade preference, finance, and deicnce. He referred to the coming Imperial Iv olioinic Conference. He described it as affording an opportunity for laying a foundation for a future economic superstructure for the Empire. Merc financial stabilisation, fie said, would not get rid of the Empire’s burdens. They most broaden the shoulders which must hear those burdens. This meant Imperial economic co-operation in responsibilities, with joint paiticipation in benefits. Britain, lie said, must always he the industrial unit for tho l ailed Kingduu. He hoped that Britain nho would remain the industrial unit for the Empire. That was the basis upon which, ho urged, the future Imperial pyramid must be built. Their Em] ire .Settlement Act was the first measure in British history which endeavoured to secure a better distribution of people, to the mutual benefit of over populated Britain and tho under-populated Dominions. If that measure was worked whole-heartedly, it would lie of advantage to those Dominions now suffering from a shortage ol population. ( apital would not flow to the Dominions, he argued, unless the Dominions were guaranteed a better and a bigger marker for the Dominions’ exports to production of which the capital was coveted. The effective redistribution of man-power and money-power was neoessarilv dependent on providing markets for the utilisation of products resulting from tho co-operation of men and money in the undeveloped Dominions. Towards that end a- policy of Imperial preference would contribute.

Referring to defence, Colonel Amoi\ said that, only as an empire, not as the United Kingdom, had the war been wen. He contended that, only as the Empire could peace he maintained. The inviolaiblity of the Pacific was possible only by united action by the countries Jjordei ing that ocean. It. was impossible that the responsibility should be borne solely by Britain. It was impossible to move the basis from the Biitish Isles to the boundless areas id the Emipre without the co-operation oi the Dominions, who were equally interested with Ti rit ain in the main-

tenance of the integrity of the Empir