THE EMPIRE OVERSEAS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 22 December 1938, Page 7

THE EMPIRE OVERSEAS

DEVELOPMENT OF SECONDARY INDUSTRIES WILL MAKE SETTLEMENT POSSIBLE (Received 22nd December, 1.32 p.m.) LONDON, 21st December. Mr Malcolm MacDonald, Secretary for the Colonies, announcing that the Government had accepted the terms of the resolution, said that if the British people did not develop the new and young countries they would be open to the reproach of sitting on a vast area of the earth’s surface and preventing its beneficial use. Moreover the increased prosperity and power of the Dominions was perhaps the best way of augmenting the strength of Britain itself. (Cheers).

Mr MacDonald indicated that he was thinking not only of the Empire’s physical security but its moral influence throughout the world.

The Empire Settlement Board would discuss Sir Henry Page Croft's scheme with him. He assured the House that if £150.000 was insufficient for the settlement schemes the Government would ask for more. The Government contemplated much larger populations being settled in the Dominions and anticipated the time when millions additional would get a livelihood there. “That’s the scale on which we are thinking as the ultimate objective.”

He did not wish to minimise the importance of land settlement, but if the House were thinking in terms of millions of settlers it must accept the fact that such settlement was only possible by the steady development of secondary industries. He would like to see manufacturers here and in the dominions produce simpler forms of goods, taking additional population to help in the production thereof, and thus increasing the army of consumers for the more complicated forms of manufacture which Britain was still able to send in under preference.

He was not convinced that the development of the secondary industries of the Dominion would mean a decrease in British exports. “It seems to me not merely an essential, but a principal part of the policy of Dominion development that the secondary industries in the Dominions should be steadily expanded. If we are not going to allow the steady expansion of secondary industries don’t let us talk about developing the Empire overseas, because it cannot be done on any other conditions.” Mr Ellis Smith (Lab.) said that the statement issued by the Federation of British Industries had done more to undermine confidence in New Zealand relations with Britain than anything in the past few months.