EMPIRE RESPONSIBILITIES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22470, 14 July 1936, Page 8

EMPIRE RESPONSIBILITIES

Though everyone may not agree with all that the Prime Minister has said in a survey of Empire problems and New Zealand's relation to them, there must be few to whom its comprehensiveness and its spirit will not appeal. One feature is most marked. Mr. Savage has no illusions about the difficulties which hedge such questions as defence and migration. These difficulties are real, and to ignore them would be mere foolishness, but there is much to be said for his view, even more implied than expressed, that goodwill can do much toward removing them. Mr. Savage was considering the outlook as that which must be considered when the leaders of the various Empire nations meet at the coronation next year. He believes there is no reason why there should not be useful consultation on that occasion. There is no reason, and those who suggest that the circumstances of the gathering make it inappropriate for the purpose should remember that all Empire consultation of the kind traces back to a famous time of celebration, Queen Victoria's Jubilee in 1887. Certainly the position, as Mr. Savage sees it, embraces a great deal: the reciprocal investment of surplus funds in Empire projects, the fostering of trade as a consequence of such capital movements, defence, migration and employment, with their interactions. There is an organic unity among these, as has been well enough recognised. For instance, some years ago British industrialists, complaining that many of their most dangerous foreign competitors had been financed in the first instance with British capital, suggested there should be a properly designed policy of investment within the Empire in complementary, not competitive, enterprises. Similarly it has been demonstrated that investments and markets with their bearing on employment have much to do with the future of migration. These are things appropriate for discussion at an Empire Conference, and it is right that ideas on them should be formulated by New Zealand well in advance.