EMPIRE PRODUCTION

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XLVIII, Issue 10984, 2 August 1927, Page 6

EMPIRE PRODUCTION

WHAT ADVERTISING CAN DO, England less than 100 years ago was more scattered than the British .umpire is to-day. Swift steamships, railways, and motor roads have brought even the most distant parts of tno Empire within easy reach of the mother country than the north of Jingtand used to be of the south. But while the interchange of manufactured goods and raw commodities has been vastly quickened by this fact, the interchange of ideas has relatively speaking lagged behind. 1 do not mean Chat people in Sydney, for instance, are altogether out of touch with their foiiow-citizcns in Southampton or that Canada means nothing to Kent, says the Hon. W. G. Orinsby-Gore, M.P., in the "Daily Mail." Happily citizens of the Empire ail oyer the world are growing more and more conscious of tneir common ways of thought and interests. But their is considerable leeway to be made up in this field. One still nnds surprising ignorance of the simplest lactsi about the Empire expressed by men generally very wed nnormed. In my view one of the greatest needs of the day is a better understanding of these simple facts by British citizens at home and overseas. Nothing controversial is involved. No old, halt-healed political wounds need be opened, it is purely a question of a better and ful- i iei- knowledge of facts. We in this country are getting more and more of our imported foodstuffs and of the raw. materials i'or our fac-

tories from the Empire overseas. Our fellow-citizens outside the United Kingdom are making stronger demands upon our manufacturers for the products of our industrial districts. All these scattered areas of the world under the British flag serve each other's needs and share a common desire for peace and for the expansion of trade. There is unlimited scope for such excpansion, nowhere more markedly than in the tropical colonies, of which I may claim to speak with some special knowledge. The dark and hitherto unproductive areas of tropical Africa have been opened up in the last generation and converted into huge producing areas capable cf absorbing great quan- ; titias of our exports. It is this process, going on rapidly every year, that I should like to see appreciated by all British citizens. We cannot unfortunately, all. travel, but there are other means of making the Empire "come alive" for those of us whom circumstances compel to stay at home, and among these means the Advertising Exhibition, and Convention at Olympia ranks, high. I welcome the opportunity that it offers of bringing to the attention of people in this"country the wonderful, variety of resources included within their Empire.