PRACTICAL PREFERENCE

Evening Star, Issue 18504, 11 December 1923, Page 2

PRACTICAL PREFERENCE

HOUSEWIVES AND THE EMPIRE. [By Viscountess Astok, M.P.] Although women have. I think, as a whole, a strong sense of loyalty in their nature, and many have an interest in our overseas dominions, which is deeply rooted in a personal concern for a son or brother who has gone abroad, yet for others the full meaning of the British Empire has never been realised. For them the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley, in 1624, will be of special importance. It will enable them to visualise the vastness of the British Empire and of the nations it comprises.

Like all great ideals, the ideal of this band of free people under the British Flag, acknowledging British standards of life and conduct, is a practical, tiling. It was never mo-re practical, not even in the dark days of the war. than it is now. Wo co-operated for victory in battle; now wo must co-operate for prosperity in peace. Everyone knows that our terrible tragedy of unemployment is chiefly the result of vanished markets, aggravated by the stopping of migration, which has increased overcrowding at home. The European nations, which used to be our biggest customers, are either bankrupt or so poor that they can 410 longer afford to buy tho goods made in our factories. It is not much good .saying, as some people never tire of reiterating, “ Make peace with Europe.” No British Government can control the aggressive tendencies at work in Europe; it can only use its influence for peace and refrain from adding fuel to the fire. But with our own dominions and colonies we are dealing with relatives, who not only speak but think like us, and wo can talk with them over our problems and agree on plans for mutual help. That is why it is practical politics to discuss markets and trade and the redistribution of the population of the Empire at the Imperial Conference; Women arc the housekeepers and the shoppers of tho nation. In their hands, therefore, lies a great deal of say in the making of the markets. If more Australian jam, tinned fruit, dried fruit, and 1 meat are bought in Great Britain, we can "end more British goods on payment for them to Australia, and thus keep our factories at home busy. If, by our encouragement of South African goods, South African industries flourish, they can more rapidly develop their undeveloped continent, and offer openings and homes to those of our own people who are attracted by the free life of a new country.

'So it is with all tho other dominions. They all have populations preferring British goods, and preferring to send their wares to us if we will lake them. We have an unemployment and 1 an overcrowding problem ■ whoso solution depends on more orders for our factories and tho opening up of new countries for men and women of British stock. It is only common sense and practical sense that we should share our problems, and work together for tho solution of them, with those whose interests -and development are bound up with our own. The British Empire Exhibition will give every housewife a chance to know' something of what the great dominions and colonies are making in their factories and on their farms. If British women will make a real effort to visit the British Empire Exhibition many times and to buy British goods, of which they will see such a splendid display at the Exhibition, they will help to solve the poverty question at home by helping to make markets for their husbands’ and their sons’ manufactured goods overseas. What a joy it would be to take “preference ” out of politics and put it into the hands of the housewives of Great Britain 1