Evening Post. THURSDAY, JULY 21,1932. THE SPIRIT OF BRITAIN

Evening Post, Volume CXIV, Issue 18, 21 July 1932, Page 10

Evening Post. THURSDAY, JULY 21,1932. THE SPIRIT OF BRITAIN

The Empress of Britain, which is described as the world's greatest liner, had on board no less than five teams for the Ottawa Conference. Two of them came from Ulster and Southern Rhodesia, which had not previously 'been represented at an Imperial Conference. The three represented Britain, India, and South Africa respectively. It was a unique Imperial cargo,* that the Empress of Britain was carrying, yet as much might have been said of it if four of the delegations had travelled by .another route. The British team alone would have given distinction to the trip.

No stronger delegation, said "The Times" in its valedictory article, ever, loft Great Britain on public business.

This was a very safe statement, as a message sent from the liner on Saturday showed:— .

A high-seas Cabinet of seven British Cabinet Ministers is mceting_ every morning and afternoon considering the statement of British policy which Mr. Stanley Baldwin will make at the opening of tho Conference.

What British Cabinet had ever before sent seven of its members away at the-same time on oversea service?

We might also ask, what British Cabinet could have claimed with equal force to represent the whole nation? or at a time of grave domestic stress could have sent so powerful a team away without risk to its stability? Mr. Baldwin, who, if he had not elected to sacrifice the claims of his party and his personal ambitions—if he has any—-to the needs of the nation, would now have been iPrime Minister with a majority-of three or four hundred, but prefers to serve under a man with a relatively insignificant personal following, heads the delegation. The public life of the Empire contains no more chivalrous or sportsmanlike spirit, no Imperialist more generous in,his interpretation of the claims of the Dominions, no more ardent believer in the'value of Imperial preference as a bond of Empire. His second in command is Mr. J. H. Thomas, who, as Secretary of State for the Dominions, wouldj in Mr. Baldwin's absence* have headed the delegation. At the lass Imperial Conference Mr. Thomas, as a member of a Free Trade Government, had to battle again3t the claims of the Dominions, but in the subsequent sacrifice of his Free Trade principles to the demands of a great emergency his disinterestedness and his breadth of mind have been as conspicuous, as those of Mr. Baldwin. It is probable that during the last six months nobody in the Empire has worked more strenuously in the interests of Imperial preference than this Freetrader.

In Mr. Neville Chamberlain Britain sends another first-rank man— the Chancellor of the Exchequer who has accomplished the almost unique feat in these times-of balancing his Budget, and who has achieved another,wonder in leading1 Britain away from Free Trade. Having already given the Dominions a temporary 10 per cent, preference under his tariff he has now gone to Ottawa in the hope of being able to increase it and make it permanent on a reciprocal basis. Like Mr. Thomas, Mr. Runciman is a Freetrader, but that did not prevent him, as President of the Board of Trade, from taking charge of the Abnormal Importations Bill which actually represented Britain's first breakaway from Free Trade. Both in the conduct of that measure and since he appears to have achieved a Parliamentary success unsurpassed by any of his colleagues in the Ministry. Intellectually Lord Hailsham, a former Lprd Chancellory is probably the most distinguished member of the team. Sip Philip Cunliffe Lister is also a man' of great ability, but it is obviously in their official capacities as .Colonial Secretary and Minister of Agriculture respectively that he and Sir John Gilmbur owe the two remaining places in the delegation.

Britain has thus, it will be seen, given of her very best. She has sent to Ottawa men of commanding ability, and who in their interests tod in their offices seem to cover every aspect of the problems to be considered. As-to the special training that she has given them for their gob we will let her Prime Minister speak. In his Empire Day Message, which was Broadcast from Lossiemouth on the 24th May', Mr. Mac Donald, after referring to the need for an economic i policy which would promote Empire trader without paralysing that of the rest of the world, said:—•

"Whoever proposes to help in devising .such a scheme must begin by knowing the facts of tho industrial conditions and policies in the various Dominions.

.. . The British Government for months lias been working with painstaking earo at the precise programme, lists of duties, their purposes, how and ,whoro to modify them, and so on, and. it has been, urging the Dominions to clo

the samo. It has takeri into consultation tho representatives of the industries —both Federations of Employers and Trade Unions of workpeople. Before the Delegation leaves it will have studied, with a thoroughness which has never before been devoted to it, every aspect of the problem of'lmperial preference as a means of promoting Imperial unity, increasing the volume of Imperial trade, and employing Imperial labour.

We should be. glad to think .that Dominion statesmen are as fully alive as those of Britain to the danger of pushing the "family party" theory too far, and that they have devoted the same conscientious study to all the details of the problem.

It would be still more satisfac-1 tory to know that the Dominion delegates will bring to their task the same breadth of mind and the same disinterestedness that will certainly be forthcoming from Mr. Baldwin and his. colleagues. The interview reported yesterday represents, Mr. Bruce as saying that

they were going into the thick of vthe fray, impressed that everybody was approaching the .Conforenco in the same, spirit as Australia. ": .

We will pass "the thick of the fray" as an unfortunate slip of the tongue, but the' holding up of Australia as a model was certainly a fault of the mind. A few days previously Mr. Bruce had done the same thing. Mr. Mac Donald's Empire Day message, from which we have already quoted, was admirable, but that passage in Mr. Bruce's speech on the same clay in which he said that "the Australian. Government would not tolerate" from Britain would make poor reading in Ottawa just now. The spirit of Britain is a better model for the delegates than the spirit 6f Australia as represented by Mr. Bruce on that occasion.

It is of little assistance,'said Mr. Mac Donald on Empire , Day, to give forth empty slogans of resounding eloquence,, and find when the Ottawa Conference is opened that none of the various Dominions is in a position to translate these slogans; into fiscal schedules. ■ ,'■ i . ■' .- The spirit of Britain should enable Mr. Bruce and the other Dominion delegates to stand the test.