DEMAND FOR COLONIES

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXX, Issue 4873, 21 July 1936, Page 2

DEMAND FOR COLONIES

FALLACY OF RAW MATERIALS PLEA. Germany and Italy base their claim to a redistribution of colonies on the plea that they must have uninterrupted access to raw materials. Has the claim a genuine basis? Mr. Harold Butler, director of the International Labour Office at Geneva, in a report to the International Labour Conference, discusses the problem of their distribution. The problem he shows has been badly set out. It is not mainly a colonial problem. “Only rubber, tin, phosphates and vegetable oils,” he writes, “are produced chiefly by colonies. The principal materials, such as cotton, wool, silk, coal, oil, iron wood, cement, gold, silver, copper, nickel, and manganese are not mainly the products of colonies but of self-governing States. Also, it should be noted that where a single State or a small number of States are the exclusive producers of a particular raw material, their monopoly is nowadays rendered precarious by the ingenuity of the scientist. Artificial silk and nitrates have already destroyed much of the value of the natural articles. Artificial wool, rubber and oil are already in the field, if not yet altogether commercial possibilities. Monopoly is, therefore, more difficult than in the past. Those who depend for their living upon natural products, are subjected to much stronger inducements to render them as accessible as possible to the consumer, lest he be driven by necessity to take refuge in invention.

As to the difficulties in the purchase of raw materials arising from the fact of depreciated currencies, the director points out that Belgium has been able to obtain raw materials abroad as long as her exports have been maintained. The same is true of Japan. Sweden and Czech-* Slovakia have to import most of their raw materials, and do not appear to be hampered in this respect.