Evening Post THURSDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1938. A NEW DOMINION?

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 150, 22 December 1938, Page 8

Evening Post THURSDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1938. A NEW DOMINION?

A tendency to recommend the federating of the far-flung isles of the British West Indies, and to give them Dominion status, was attributed this week, by an American writer, to the Royal Commission now inquiring into West Indian riots, disturbances, and the economic causes thereof. This Royal Commission is one of a long line of similar Commissions and investigations in which the Colonial Office has sought refuge from time to time during the last fifty years. There has been no tendency towards decisive West Indian policy at the Colonial Office since Mr. Joseph Chamberlain's day; and the regular periodical practice of filing reports recommending needed economic remedies, and of neutralising those recommendations by the announcement that there is no money, has become a bit monotonous even in colonial administration.' So perhaps the present Royal Commission will make some kind of a breakaway by proposing a new Dominion, and by asking the new Dominion to solve its own problems. As these problems are fundamentally economic, they are best solved by action within the area in which they are felt. That is one reason why Dominions exist. Mr. Mac Donald, Dominions Secretary, remarked on Tuesday in the House of Commons that "the Dominion of New Zealand has the rights to conduct its trading in its own way without interference from anyone in England." New Zealand's economy is based largely on the British market for a few primary products, especially wool, meat, and butter. The economy of the West Indies is also based very largely on the British market for a few primary products, especially sugar. But whereas New Zealand conducts her trade policy, in relation to Britain, through her own Government, the West Indies have relations with Britain through the Colonial Office. Now that the Jamaican and other West Indian disturbances have shown that the policy of Colonial Office administration and of periodical investigational reports (not acted on) is wearing thin, a new phase in an old situation has to be faced. Hence the American journalistic suggestion that a new Dominion may result.

Countries depending very largely on export of a very few articles of primary produce have obvious economic weaknesses. Whether they voice their claims through a Dominion Government in strong terms, or through the official channels of a Colonial Office in weak terms, they are apt to overlook the central fact that the buyer generally occupies a stronger position than the seller, and that the buyer, like the seller, has a right to look after himself. What Britain pays for sugar affects not only the low standard of living of the negroid and other coloured workers in the West Indies, but also the higher standard of living of the British worker. And the standard of living of the British worker, as well as the still higher standard of the New Zealand worker, must be considered when dealing with the question of where Britain buys wool, meat, and butter, and what she pays. Do producers and production interests either in the low standard West. Indies, or in high standard New Zealand, fully consider the British consumer interest? For it must not be excluded from any useful review either of the economic strain in New Zealand (and the Government's special measures ax*ising therefrom) or from the economic tragedy of the West Indies with its riot accompaniments. The essentially economic foundation of the problem, and the demand (small or great) that the producer under the British Crown is inclined to make of the British market, is illustrated in a recent article by a West Indian expert, Lord Olivier, who states that extensive disaster in the West Indian colonies can be diverted only by establishing and guaranteeing an increased price of common grocery (white granulated) sugar on the British market, which I estimate, subject to expert correction, would raise that price to 2|d per lb retail. Lord Olivier's guaranteed price, it | will be seen, would be vastly different from the New Zealand Government's guaranteed price. Lord OJivier's would be a price guaranteed, for an import, by the consumer nation, not a price fixed by the producer natibn. Is such a guaranteed price likely to be popular with consumer nations? For instance, if the manufacturing population of Britain rioted against its standard of living, would British Dominions or British Crown Colonies be likelj Jo guaran-

tee fixed higher prices in their own markets for British manufactured imports, so as to raise the British standard of living? People who expect concessions, from the British consumer should not neglect to ask themselves such questions. If Lord Olivier's estimate of the position is correct, it would seem that West Indian living standards could be raised if people in Britain would pay more for their West Indian sugar without consuming less of it. For many years the Australian people .have paid an extra price for their sugar in order to help their Australian sugar producers; but they have regarded this as helping their own, even if the external sugar consumer has. • benefited by it. By virtue of being a Dominion, the Australians have been able to conduct these economic experiments on themselves, at the same time expecting the best of treatment from the British consumer. In a different way, the Dominion of New Zealand is now doing much the same thing. Being a Dominion is a safety-valve for experimentation, and there might be some logic in saying to the West Indies: "Become a Dominion and effect your own cure." But if there are not sufficient resources and cohesion among these far-flung islands, racially heterogeneous and geographically separated, to support the burden of Dominion status, the cure may be worse than the disease.