OPEN MARKETS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 57, Issue 110, 19 February 1937, Page 5

OPEN MARKETS.

DANGER OF CLOSING COLONIES. “BREACH OF MANDATE SYSTEM” United Press Association —Copyright.! LONDON, February 18. In the House of Lords, Lord NoelBuxton, saying that if Britain kept her colonies as a closed preserve she was heading for war, moved that Britain, because of the dangers of a policy of exclusion, should consult the Dominions and colonies with a view to applying the mandate system in suitable cases.

He said that Britain must recognise that the need for markets had an important part in the German colonial claims. There were about 25* chief commodities, of which the Empire possessed 18. German industry and science were needed in Africa.

Lord Arnold said that Britain’s colonial policy was open to the greatest possible objection. The historian of the future might well record that the Ottawa agreements were the beginning of the end of the Empire. They/ were a clear breach of the mandate system. Lord Noel - Buxton withdrew his motion.

Captain Euan Wallace, Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, at the banquet of the Royal Warrant Holders’ Association, said: “Me should regard the industrial development of Empire countries as a welcome stop forward, not as a menace to home industries’. The Empire overseas remains the chief producer of food and law materials, to which end the principal factor is prosperity. Britain may expect her share in due course through the improvement of the economic situation in the Dominions. Primary producers of the Empire will appreciate how much they owe to the industrial activities of the United Kingdom.

“The Ottawa agreements have strengthened the links of Empire, at which it is unwise to scoff. It is fortunate that we are able to secure an area, in which there is no fear of new impediments to trade and a. continuance of economic policies based on the general welfare of the Empire.”