LORD MILNER. ON STATE SOCIALISM.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14993, 13 June 1914, Page 5

LORD MILNER. ON STATE SOCIALISM.

("FROM OUR OWN COBRESfINniNT.) LONDON, May 2

"Tho need for the Better Organisation of Economic and Industrial Resources" was tho subject of a paper read at tho Society of Arts, and m opening a discussion upon it, Lord Milner said: —

"Tho question of the organisation of the economic resources of the British Empire is very important. I havo always been greatly puzzled at tho lack of interest in the economic potentialities of the Empire. The question is whether the different parts of the Empire cannot be more mutually helpful, seeing that the great lack of tho Dominions" ia man-power, and one of our great difficulties an excess of it. lhero is no pbyslcat or natural reason why our peoplo should not find a satisfactory living here, but under present conditions wo "have iiot diiptivered the means of making theso islands support forty or fifty millions of peoplo under reasonable conditions. "My deepest conviction is that 95 per cent, of the misery of tho world is due to muddle. This State Socialism is all very well. I am in principle fl. Socialist, but wo have not the knowledge, _c capacity, tho character, or tho regulating power to do what is proposed. It is not tho physical difficulties that appal mc, but the amount, of administration and government that will be required. When 1 consider how poor a job wo make ot the subjects now reserved for government, I look with alarm on schemes of improvement wliich 6eem to make the wholo of life a sphere of public administration.

'•The greatest waste of human mater- ( ial hero arises from deterioration under unfavourable conditions in the years of early adolescence. Good material becomes" incapable of development later, and therefore I advocate emigration in ear-y youth, before the young rieople nave had time to run to seed nere. "Tho, economic products of our dependent tropical Empire are curiously essential to the industries of our own country and other great countries in the temperate zone. The time is coming when the rivalry of European nations will consist largely in a struggl* to get hold of the greatest sharo of those countries which produce raw materials for their industries. A new chapter in Imperial development and in the economic organisation of the world was opened when the British Government took the very important —•■- of recognising that it was necessary for it to provide, if possible, within the Empire, the cotton wliich Lancashire requires. That chapter is going to be a very long and important one. There is often a prejudice against the development oi our tropical possessions on the ground that it was mere capitalistic exploitation. Has Lancashire no interest in. raw cotton? Have tho masses of the poor no interest in cocoa or in animal and vegetable oils? Those countries first required Pax Britannica, and then capital and brains. It does not follow that theso shall bo supplied only by the rich."