“SELLING THE EMPIRE”

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 March 1946, Page 6

“SELLING THE EMPIRE”

AMERICAN LOAN TERMS CONDEMNED OUTSPOKEN COMMENT , LONDON, March 1. Lord Rothernick, Chairman of the Clan Line, said at a meeting of the London Chamber of Shipping that the conditions of the American loan to Britain are intolerable and humiliating. This loan is nothing more or less than selling the British Empire and its independence to America. The loan should have been left free of interest. He did-not desire to live to see the end of the British Empire and all that it meant for employment, happiness and prosperity.

“America -has. attached these conditions to the loan because it wants tha markets of the Empire and the sterling area. She views the rich Empire markets with longing eyes as an outlet for her increasing production. There is no indication that she has any intention of granting an open door into America for British goods or Empire produce. He added: “The nations of the Empire, by these agreements, are actually forbidden to help one another, whether by tariff preferences or by mutual bulk purchase deals, or even agreement to buy British or to invest in the Empire. They are to be denied the right to co-operate in peace as they did in war.” He declared that America’s demand for the elimination of Empire preference was a direct denial of the right of the British Empire to exist. The most assured hope of our future recovery lay in Empire trade. . That hope was now to be jettisoned if the agreements were carried out. Surely, he said, it was ar better to do without Virginian tobacco and American films than to barter away our Empire for them. Everything in the loan and its conditions was designed to stimulate American exports, whereas what the world wanted was for America to buy and go on buying.