EMPIRE ECONOMICS

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 143, 14 December 1922, Page 4

EMPIRE ECONOMICS

In urging that delegates to the Empire Economic should include a proportion of business men, "The Times" has stated: "The need of the hour is a direction as to the practicable steps which may be taken immediately, rather than the evolution of politico-economic systems unable to bear fruit for some years." The need for practical measures js cei--tainly one that cannot be gainsaid, but it would be unwise to. emphasise too strongly the benefit of immediate action. Wrong Steps taken 'hastily have often to be retraced in weai'iness of spirit; and the call for immediate action is apt to result in the application of palliatives instead of remedies. Yet it must be admitted that the discussion of the self-sufficiency of the Empire has strayed from-the practical to the theoretical. '(We have aIL been bugy, convincing ourselves that inter-Imperial trade should be encouraged, but we have gone little further than urging the -application of stock methods for this purpose. We have not faced the difficulties. The difficulties are very rerl, and their reality must be grasped before they can be overcome. It is easy to dogmatise about Free Trade. Free /Trade within the Empire, and Imperial Preference; but it has taken years to- settle one practical difficulty arising from the British embargo on Canadian cattle. Even now the settlement may not.be satisfactory to all concerned. Some of the difficulties as seen in England are stated by Mr. Au^ tin. Harrison in the "English Review." He points out in the first place that the Empire is not a single unit, it is not a Zollyerein according to the German colonial prescription, and therefore no logical unified method can ,be applied to increasing its ,trade. This makes j infinitely more complicated the problem which must be faced. As Mr. Harrison sees it, that problem is, how to fill_ the gaps caused by Continental impoverishment or insolvency—(l) as regards the loss of British European sales ; (2) as re- j gards the loss of colonial European sales. ( The loss of the Russian market for Indian tea and of part j of the European market for Australian ' wool reduced ■ the purchasing power of India and Australia, and all the producing Dominions have been affected more or less in the- same way. Without increased purchasing power in* the overseas Dominions,-the revival of British trade by selling to- the Dominions what was formerly sold to' Europe is not so simple 'as it seems. In the argument that Imperial migration-will increase the number of overseas buyers of British goods, Mi 1. Harrison sees a flaw, in that this migration will not.

cheapen British production, and he considers that the colonies are now buying dearly for Imperial reasons. " The problem is sentiment or good-will versus the cruel laws of economics." Mr. Harrison mentions the White Australia policy as one of the barriers to a purely economic development of the Empire ; but he does not explore deeply the sentiment and the business of Imperial trading relationships. Had he done so he might have found that what he considers sentimental colonial buying is offset by the British sentimental defending. Mr. Harrison, however, would prefer to see business relationships placed upoii a more stable business basis, Empire business, he argues, cannot be advanced by a policy of "piousaffirmation." Practical steps are re* quired, and the more immediate they are the more practical, will they be. •