SAVIOURS OF INDUSTRY

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 897, 14 February 1930, Page 9

SAVIOURS OF INDUSTRY

EMINENT MEN IN NEW ADVISORY COUNCIL

EMPIRE TRADE EXPANDS British Official Wireless RUGBY, Thursday. A new Economic Advisory Council, the constitution of which the Prime Minister, Mr. MacDonald, announced in the House of Commons today, will consist of men eminent in economics and in many spheres of business. Those who have consented to serve include the following:— Sir Arthur Balfour, formerly president of the Sheffield Chamber of Commerce, who has served on many economic committees. Mr. Ernest Bevin, leader of the Dock Workers’ Union. Sir John Cadman, chairman of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. Mr. Walter Citrine, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress. Air. George Cole, who is university reader in economics at Oxford. Colonel Sir Andrew Duncan, chairman of the Central Electricity Board. Mr. J. M. Keynes, a well-known economist. Sir Alfred Lewis, chief general manager of the National Provincial Bank. Sir Josiah Stamp, president of the London, Midland, and Scottish Railway, a famous economist. Mr. Richard Tawny, reader in economic history, London University. BUSINESS *IN EMPIRE The comparative position of the British Empire regai-ded as a unit In relation to world trade is surveyed in the thirteenth report of the Imperial Economic Committee. The year 1913 and the years 1925 to 1927 are taken as the bases of compai'ison. The bases of the calculation are the official trade returns and those of the economic section of the League of Nations. The report says the world trade in 1927, recalculated at the 1913 value, was 20 per cent, greatef than in 1913. British Empire trade In that period increased by 27.3 per cent:., and represented In the aggregate 30 per cent, of the world trade In 1926. The United Kingdom is the focus of inter-imperial trade, of which in 1927 about 85 per cent, centred in the United Kingdom. In the same year the United Kingdom and Ireland imported and used about 40 per cent, more Empire produce than in 1913. The increase in imports of foreign produce in the same period was about 15 per cent.

ECONOMIC UNITY

LORD MELCHETT’S SCHEME Rfecd. 10.10 a.m. LONDON. Thursday. "It would appear blind folly and a criminal act not to make the greatest effort to see whether an economic unit cannot be created in which a larger vision of the Empire replaces the narrower One in a country in which the development of any part of the Empire will be encouraged for the common good,” wi-ites Lord Melchett In “Imperial Economic Unity,” now being published. Lord Melchett argues that Britain’s adherence to a European economic unit would involve the abandonment of her attempt to maintain the British Empire. His policy implies minimum tariff barriers within the Empire and protection against foreign countries. His object might be achieved, he said, by an Imperial tariff or by each member of the Empire arranging its own tariffs, or a combination of both.