FUTURE OF EMPIRE

Grey River Argus, 4 July 1944, Page 5

FUTURE OF EMPIRE

VIEWS OF U.S. ECONOMIST. (Rec. 5.5) NEW YORK, July 2. Mr. Hartley Grattan, American author and economist, in an article in ‘‘Harber’s Magazine’' headed ‘‘What will happen to the British Empire? says: The Balance of Empire power is shifting from London to the Dominion' capitals. Mr. Grattan states that Britain will continue to propose, but that the Dominions will ever-increasingly dispose. He points out that .Britain’s exports of commodities were never sufficient to pay for imports. “The Dominions, like Australia and Canada, now have highly developed capital markets of their own, and can take care of their normal needs,” he says. “The future of English exports in countries like Australia' and Canada turns almost entirely upon English capacity to. cap? ture markets for their specialised products.” f . Mr. Grattan says that the Dominions to-day are much nearer being absolutely independent nations than they were in 1939. He says that there are two tendencies that work in the British Commonwealth, first, the trend towards the elaboration of the automony of the Dominions, and, secondly regionalism, or the interrelation of Dominions in the special parts of the world in which they are located. “Britain standing alone cannot maintain her prestige and guarantee the defence of the Empire commonwealth as she did before the war,” adds Mr. Grattan. “For this reason Mr. Curtin’s proposal for a ‘supreme consultative body to deal _ with Empire problems’ was much applauded in Brtiain, but examined closely, his proposal is merely a new kind of machinery for the exchange of data and opinions.”