The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1928. INDUSTRY AND EMPIRE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 260, 2 November 1928, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1928. INDUSTRY AND EMPIRE.

For the cause that lack* assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that toe can do.

The reputation which Lord Melchett gained as an able and successful "captain of industry" while he was still Sir Alfred Mond has been greatly enhanced of late by the ability «nd public spirit that he has shown in organising conferences of employers and unionists with the object of securing industrial peace. During his recent tour of the United States Lord Melchett has found a good deal to say about British and American industries, and the views that he has expressed this week on his return to London will carry great weight in commercial circles at Home. His conception of Britain as less a European State than the nucleus and centre of a great Empire, which should form a complete economic unit in itself, is not altogether original, but in the form which he has given it, it provides scope for a number of interesting inferences and suggestions.

Throughout his career Lord Melchett has been one of the chief advocates of commercial and industrial amalgamation and' organisation at Home. The firm of Brunner, Mond and Company led the movement which resulted in transforming the industries with which it was concerned into one great "combine," and Lord Melchett, taught by his own experience, wishes to apply the same principles of organisation and centralised control to the whole of the British industrial system at once. This is what he means by the "nationalisation" of industries. Hβ is by no means an advocate of State Socialism—in fact, he is one of its most vigorous critics and opponents. But he maintains that the haphazard methods of individual production now prevailing at Home are wasteful and inefficient, and that an attempt should be made to regulate British production on scientific lines, and to adjust the supply of commodities in the mass to the actual or probable demand.

Those who regard the rights of "private enterprise" as sacred and unassailable will no doubt reject such doctrines. But Lord Melchett wishes to go even further. He would extend the application of his principle far beyond the limits of Britain, so as to include the whole Empire in one comprehensive economic system. For this Empire, he reminds us, has a greater area, a larger population and more natural resources than any other State or country in the world; and as it is or can be made virtually self-supporting, it should be regarded and managed as a single economic unit complete in itself. Accordingly, Lord Melchett would organise the commerce and industry of the Empire on the same strictly scientific principles that he would apply to production and trade at Home.

All this throws clear light on Lord Melchett's otherwise obscure and ambiguous dictum, that Britain is not in reality a part of Europe. At first sight this might seem to indicate that he favours a policy of "splendid isolation," and that he believes it possible for Britain, as head of the Empire, to detach herself completely from all other international relations and interests. But Lord Melchett is not thinking in terms of politics or diplomacy. He is concerned only with the economic prospects of Britain and the economic future of the Empire. He holds that though Britain has not yet completely recovered her old commercial supremacy, she has "turned the corner," and he believes that by systematic industrial and commercial co-operation with the oversea Dominions she may regain what she has lost, and may ensure the economic stability and solidarity of the Empire for an indefinite time to come.