THE FAMILY FIRST.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 19971, 4 July 1930, Page 5

THE FAMILY FIRST.

LORD MBLCHETTS APPEAL. CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE CONGRESS. (jn.OU OCH OWM COBBESPOSTOBHT.) LONDON, May 30. At a luncheon at the Mansion House which followed the opening of the Congress of the Federation of Chambers of Commerce of the British Empire, Lord Melchett addressed the delegates. They had met, he said, at a very critical moment in the history of the Empire's trade, and unless they could get the Imperial outlook, which was essential to grapple with the tasks which confronted them, they would remain isolated units. The world today was suffering from an immense economio depression, the magnitude of which had never been equalled. In this country unemployment had bocome chronic, and the only solution was to restimulate and reorganise our export trade. Great Britain was overindustrialised, under-agriculturised, over-populated for its size, and dependent for its food and raw materials mainly on the outside world, finding door after door more and more difficult to enter, tariff w»U after tariff wall more difficult to climb, and prohibition after prohibition of ite products. "We should endeavour, regardless of Partv or previous ideas," he continued, "to see that we exchange our commodities freely among ourselves to the best advantage of all. Let tho famil-v come first and outsiders next. To-day we are' buying huge quantities of goods from people who buy nothing from us. Let us work out the problem of Empire economio onity with j

convictjon and courage. When the will is given to it, the moans will soon bo found to carry it into effect. We want to make ourselves, a? far as possible, self-contained. The outsider can come in when we have finished. "A lot of people say to me: 'Won't yon antagonise other nations by binding the Empire closer together?' I never heard of other nations hothering themselves a hoot whether th«y were antagonising us when they wore entering trade agreements. We shall get more respect from other people when the Empire stands more closely together."

Lord Melchett, after expressing the view that the great American economic unit as it was to-day, would be followed by a European unit at no distant time, asked: "Is Great Britain coming into economic unity with Europe, or is she going to stand outside? It is s very serious question, and yet there are people bitten with the Geneva microbe who wonld surrender the Empire to anyone who preaches tbe doctrines that have lately been heard from the shores of I*ake Geneva/*