“BOLD AND IMAGINATIVE PLAN” OF EMPIRE AS ECONOMIC UNIT

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 193, 4 November 1927, Page 1

“BOLD AND IMAGINATIVE PLAN” OF EMPIRE AS ECONOMIC UNIT

„ ,i«?ED MOND’S scheme of free internal exchanges t® ••trade combination greater than either ," AMERICA OR EUROPE” By Cable. —Press Association. — Copyright. r Received 10.30 a.m. LONDON, Thursday. r 3 “Financial Times” describes as bold and imaginative the scheme unfolded by Sir Alfred Mond for the development o f the Empire as an economic unit. The speech was made at a meeting of the Empire Industries Association.

-A aU red mond said: —“ Wit h America as one great combinauid Europe becoming another, Question arises, whether Britain Laid remain in isolation between ZC two vast bodies, or create an yptrial unit more powerful than d*er“Why should we fear a general -iff the Empire? It would enT|, t 0 to dictate most favourable ndleg terma to the world. -flu British Empire, with America’s auditions of free internal exchanges tariff against the rest of the UJ(d, could produce more than the djuricans ever dreamed of.”

There was no economic entity that could possibly compete with the Empire, when its advantages in size and population, resources, and markets were considered. Sir Alfred Mond quoted a string of remarkable figures of British and Australian trade, for the purpose of emphasising that intraimperial trade was becoming a dominating factor in the world, as well as in British trade. He said that on a proper and true solution of the problem of the organisation of the British Empire as an economic unit depended the whole future existence of that great structure of self-governing Dominions, the Commonwealth of Australia and the far-flung territories under the administration of the Crown, which formed at once the admiration and the envy and despair of other nations. EMPIRE’S COMMAND The Empire had command of some of the world’s leading commodities, and, therefore, held a position which ought to enable her to compel most favourable trading terms from other countries, if the resources of the Empire were utilised unitedly and in the right way. He advocated the expenditure of much larger sums on settlement in the Dominions. Such a policy would create purchasers in the Dominions for some goods and relieve the labour market at home. The time had come for the achievement of this ideal. The ‘‘Financial News” editorially states: —“Britain cannot settle down as a self-supporting nation like Denmark. Hardly more attractive is a league between itself and Europe, which as a market is incapable of much further expansion. The practical man must turn to the Empire. If we had a union of Empire, such as exists between the different States of America, we should be the greatest market In the world, and self-support-ing. We need chains where we have now only string.”—A. and N.Z.