Evening Post. SATURDAY, JULY 30, 1932. CANDID AND FIRM

Evening Post, Volume CXIV, Issue 26, 30 July 1932, Page 12

Evening Post. SATURDAY, JULY 30, 1932. CANDID AND FIRM

We noted yesterday the happy formula by which in a report from Ottawa of the proceedings of the Dominions' Fruit Industry Committee Great Britain had been by implication ruled out of her own Empire.

The fruit problem, we were told, is practically solved. The Empire proposals -will now be submitted to the British delegation.

A caucus of Dominion delegates had settled the fruit policy of the Empire, and the - representatives of a nation outside ' the Empire—-to wit, the British nation-.—were now to be told to take it or leave .it. The same procedure1 has since been applied to. a much more important industry, and the report includes the same formula with the addition of an impressive epithet. "The unanimous Empire meat proposals" were reported yesterday to have been presented to the British delegation. As it is obviously impossible for Britain to stand up against the decision of a "unanimous Empire" it might seem a superfluity to consult her delegation'at all. . But to take that view would be to betray a complete ignorance of the principles on which this so-called "British" Empire is run. Though Britain is not privileged to shape the meat policy or the fruit policy of the Empire, she is privileged to pay for both of them., In that respect at any rate there is no breach of continuity.

The Dominions have no more notion of sharing the cost of Empire than when they were infant colonies in the leading-strings of Downing Street. they settle this Imperial problem or that by a "unanimous Empire" decision they merely mean that they have drawn, up another cheque for the old man to sign. And when Mr. Bruce Vsays. that "it is unthinkable that the .Conference should fail" he merely means that the old man will never1 be so blind to the, merits of Australia and- the other less important Dominions as to dream of discontinuing this.; timehonoured practice. Yet the unthinkable is threatening* to happen. There is a limit eveii tq the endurance and ihe generosity of Britain, and whatever her, Irishes, might ber she cannot pay "what !she has not got. . She has the heaviest load of debt in the wOrld. Her, taxpayers .have submitted to almost crushing burdens nyit merely bravely and cheerfully but even with an alacrity that has astonished the world. ; She faced last year a threatened . deficit of £170,000,000, gave the Government which, met it with proposals that included £71,000,000 of new taxation an unexampled majority, ancT almost alone among the nations of the world came through with a surplus. But after a temporary check the number of her registered unemployed at the end of April was 2,652,181 and was steadily increasing. ' Before the end of the year,she may have to make the United States a payment.of more than £30,000,000 on accounf of war debts, and the need for fresh cuts totaling: £130,000j000 has already been,seriously discussed. >

Such is the position of the' Mother Country upon whom during the past week the daughter States have been piling up their demands as eagerly as though:she was still rolling in money and they were the only sufferers, ,and who is at last compelled to say that a policy underr taken at their instance and advocated by them on business grounds must be treated as a matter of business on her side also, and that she cannot give without getting something commensurate in, return. It is not to the credit of th& Dominion delegates that his had to he said, but, as we were arguing yesterday, it ' badly needed saying, since Britain was being placed in a false position by her silence in the face of their strenuous importunity. Though much misunderstanding and misrepresentation might have been averted by an earlier statement, there are some advantages in its postponement till after the full strength—and the full weakness —of the Dominions' advocacy have been revealed. Nor could I a better spokesman have been found than Mr. Baldwin. He is an ardent Imperialist; he is a staunch Protectionist, who has always regarded the need for a policy which would bind the Empire more closely together as one of the chief objections to Free

Trade; and he is conspicuous for his chivalry, his courtesy, and his breadth of mind.

The British memorandum is in keeping with the character of the writer. It is gentle hut at the same time candid and firm, and we cannot see that it contains a single word at which any Dominion delegate can reasonably take offence. There is no attempt at rhetoric, and its figures are by far its most eloquent part. The figures relating to the oversea trade of the Dominions are of special interest and value. It is strange to find that the Irish Free State is the only Dominion that showed a balance of trade favourable to the United kingdom— a point of which Mr. O'Kelly might have made much if it had not been for the recent change. Another queer point is that, though Mn Bruce appears to regard the magnitude of Britain's trade with the Argentine a* a serious blot upon her escutcheon, Australia's imports from foreign countries were 10 per cent, larger than those from the United Kingdom, but Mr. Baldwin was,'.of course, too polite to touch this point. The points to which he called special attention as reveajed by the figures were:—

(1) A visible trade balance In favour of the Dominions of nearly £ioo,ooo;ooo. . - ,

(2) Dominion imports from foreign countries to th* amount of nearly £350,000,000.

The most intrinsically important of all Mr. Baldwin's points is probably his insistence on the maintenance of Britain's foreign markets as "vital to the physical existence of her people," but it is neither surprising nor unwholesome that another point is reported to have made a deeper impression at Ottawa.

The Dominions, we are told, are taking especial notice of that part of the- statement: "There is ■practically no free entry for British exports into the four principal Dominions," hinting that the present scale of preferences is insufficient from, the British viewpoint. The publication of such views, instead of merely enunciating them in the privacy of is regarded as a,mild'.indication to the Dominions that .the British delegates are slightly piqued at the forcefulness of .the Dominions' demands, coming like an encircling attack.

If the British delegates are ;not slightly piqued they have a good right to be, and they have given the Dominion delegates something to think about. The tone of Mr. Br t uce, who was once regarded as a model Imperialist, has been particularly deplorable, and the inevitable association of New Zealand with Australia has injured pur own case also..