TRADE IN THE EMPIRE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19144, 9 October 1925, Page 13

TRADE IN THE EMPIRE.

THE BRITISH CAMPAIGN. i: ; tv - ■ • EDUCATING THE COUNTRY. IMPORTANCE OF DOMINIONS. SWEATED GOODS FROM EUROPE. BT ARCHIBALD RUED. A significant movement is making beadwav among th© people of the British Isles and it promises in time to sweep away the barriers between party and party and mobilise all sections of the community in support of a broad-based Imperial policy. The British Empire Exhibition has conveyed to the minds of millions of men, women and children a new conception of the character and potential strength of the Dominions, Crown Colonies and Dependencies. The educational influence which the exhibition has exercised on the mass of the British people who are weekly wageearners has been due in considerable measure to the courageous lead given by Mr. J. B. Thomas as Colonial Minister in jlr. Ramsay Mat-Donald's Administration. His .visit to S uth Africa confirmed hiin in his Imperialism and he has since become the missionary of Empire in his own party, drawing to his side an increasing number of adherents. The unorganised and ursco-ordiaated publicity campaign in favour of closer Imperial relations, which has been going on for many months, is now profiting from the report of the Imperial Economic Committee, on which every part of the Empire is represented, which has revealed that the Dominions, Crown Colonies and Dependencies absorb 591 per cent, of British exports of food, drink ana tobacco, and 44.9 per cent, of the exports of British manufactured goods. Those calculations are based on the statistics of .1923 and there is reason to believe the ratios were even higher in 1924, and advanced still further during the first six months of the, present year. As Sir Halford Mackinder's committee has pointed out: "It is in the overseas markets of the Empire more than anywhere else in the world that Britain continues to hold her own," and this body has reminded readers of its first report that, "head for head, the inhabitants of the Empire are by far th-"- 'largest importers of the products of British skill and labour." Britain's Best Customers. The average British worker, anxious as to the future of his home, is beginning to realise that the British people overseas are th<* best buyers of British goods. On the average, the inhabitants of the selfgoverning dominions make purchases at the rate of £6 7s 3d per capita a year. The next best customers are the peoples of South America, who spend at the rate of 18s, while the population of the United States purchases to the extent of only 9s 6d. What has been an even mere remarkable revelation to the man in the street is that Europe generally, though so near to the British Isles, buys British goods at the rate of only 12s Id per capita, and absorbs mainly raw materials, such as coal arid other articles, on which comparatively little labour is expended. The peculiar value of the outward British trade with India, Britain's largest customer, Australia, which comes next, New Zealand, whkh is the largest purchaser per head of the population. South Africa and Canada, is that the goods shipped to these destinations are mainly those which gi"e the greatest employment to the most skilled British labour. Two or three years ago, it is safe to say, very few people in the British Isles realised to what en extent the overseas parts of the Empire give employment to craftsmen in the great staple industries, j They had a- vague impression that British | trade was mainly dependent on the appreciation of the inhabitants of European j c entries and the many millions of people who live on the American continent. The disparity in population appeared to confirm this impression, but now the truth is sinking in that, owing to the wonderful development of shipping and its cheapness, as compared with rail or road transport, the great sea distances of the Empire are no longer a harrier to closer Imperial trade relations and the British Empire Exhibition has fired the imagination of millions of people with new conceptions of the extent of the Empire, the variety of its products and the possibility of further development of Empire trade. Australia, with less than 6.000,000 propie, takes more British exports than the United States, with nearly thirteen times as large a population. South Ainca is a better customer than Argenwhere £<500, 000, 000 of British capital ha? been invested. New Zealand, w th its comparatively small population, buys nearly as much British produce as China, with its 444.000,000 inhabitants; while Canada, in spite of her proximity to the great manufacturing centres of the United States, and her own progressive industries; still - bays from the Mother Country to the extent of upwards of £28,000.000. An Imperial Crusade, Under the auspices of the Imperial Economic Committee, a publicity crusade throughout the cities,- towns and villages f, f England, Scotland and Wales is to be conducted. An appeal J is going to be made to the sentiment as well as To the business instincts of the people, " Why," it will be asked, "should you not buy mo~e of your food from the best customers of your manufactures ? Every year you have to import grain, meat, butter, cheese, eggs, fruit, and other things to the value of upwards of £500.000,000. At present little more than one-third of those importations are obtained from overseas parts of the Empire. Why should not that proportion be increased That is the proposition which is to be put before the 47,000.000 people of the Mother Country—at an annual expenditure of about £650,000, which '*ili be devoted to an advertising campaign. Other large sums will be spent on research into the production and preservation of foodstuffs. A great deal has yet to be done to enable chilled, instead of frozen, meat to be brought to British tables from Australia and New Zealand, >s it i-- now brought from South America with its shorter sea route. Denmark supplies mild cured bacon, which the Siitish consumer likes for his breakfast; he ideal is to enable Canada to do the >ar„« by scientific developments which are 11 ready within sight. A great deal has still to be done to perfect the methods >f- preserving the fruits of South Africa, Australia and other parts cf the Etbpire that they may be kept in good condition during transport over long distances. It is also proposed to encourage the car'i'lge of pedigree sock from the United Kingdom to the Dominions, in accordinee with the successful movement car*ied on for so many years by South American countries. ' On these various schemes it is in'ended to spend £1,000,003 a year. Though the proposals lave been criticised in some quarters as 'subsidising Imperial trade." they have leen cnerailv well received, and there is i confident anticipation that all classes of the community will approve this -Sort to supplement the modest scheme Imperial preference which found its '-•ace in this year's British Budget by m attempt to mobilise the consumers in ®.pport of tins British" workers' best customer*. AVitude of the Socialist Party. It is a curious circumstance that at the foment when this campaign is about- to launched, the British Socialist Partv. K hrch claims to represent the mass of ths sk'lled \\r>> i'cs of the- country, ~is {Tfetjy exercised on the question of 'sweated poods." which are being proluced on the Continent of Europe and "bewherc under conditions of labour jk'hich would not be tolerated in any part

of the Emmre. The hours of these produced are long, the wages, are low, and the conditions of work unsatisfactory. These "sweated goods" are not only invading the Home market, but they are successfully competing with British goods in foreign markets. A committee over which Mr. Philip Scowden, the late Chancellor of tho Exchequer, presided, has agreed that improved efficiency alone will net enable the British producer to hold his own in foreign markets. But, on the other hand, this body has determined that a British tariff against "sweated goods" is not to he thought of. It is suggested that the aim, for the present, must be to secure something in the nature of an international ban on such articles which are not produced in accordance with the Washington Hours Convention. It is one thing to talk of international agreements, . faithfully observed by all parties, but it is quite another matter to secure unity of action. The average British worker is increas ingly alarmed by the competition of such "sweated goods" and wants immediate action, and he is also increasingly impressed by the fact that he has the sympathy and support in his difficulties of his kith and kin overseas, where "sweating," as it exists in the Old World, is unknown. The fact is that the industrial nations fall into two groups so far as labour conditions are concerned; the one consists of the English-speaking peoples, including the inhabitants of tho United States, with rising standards of living, and the other of foreign countries, with lower standards. It can be I only a question of time before the British I working classes generally come to the conclusion that their best customers over- [ seas ere also their best allies in helping | them to fight against the competition of 1 "sweated goods," and then they will ignore narrow fiscal sophistries. It is also only a question of time before they realise the truth underlying the declaration of Genera] Smuts, which has been endorsed by other statesmen in the Dominions, that "you cannot fairly claim that the Dominions should, in very large numbers, take emigrants from these islands and at the same time refuse to help the Dominions by taking the produce of their hands." The two policies, obviously, go hand in hand, and the aim of the "imperial economic committee is to bring this fact home, in the first place, to the average housewife, now a voter as well as a buyer, who is more than ever anxious for the future of her boys and girls in a country which, for some years past, has had upwards of a million workers unable to find work. She is beginning to think of the future of her family and will undoubtedly look more and more across the oceans to the younger nations and rising colonies, where the same social and economic ideals are cherished as in the Mother Country.