“MAGIC AXIS OF TRADE”

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11647, 11 October 1923, Page 4

“MAGIC AXIS OF TRADE”

The wisdom exhibited by our New Zealand Government in reverting to penny postage as soon as ever postwar financial conditions would permit it, has once more been acclaimed at the heart of the Empire, in marked contrast to the very unfavourable reception accorded that step by Australia. This time it is acclaimed by Baron Blyth, who, writing to the London “Times,” declares that one of the moat pressing and urgent problems for the British Empire to solve is that of securing cheaper postage. This, manifestly, because the cheaper the postage rates, the more frequent and the closer will bo the intercommunication, both for business and for social purposes, between the different parts of our farflung Empire; and the more frequent and the closer that intercourse the stronger and the tighter will be both the bonds of mutually profitable trade and the silken ties of sentiment that bind together in peace and brotherhood the free nations which constitute the greatest Empire that the worTd has ever seen. The greatest, not only in wealth and prestige, not only in military and naval power, but, vyhat is far more, the greatest also in all that makes for freedom and righteousness, for world peace, and for the wellbeing of humanity as a whole. It is, therefore, at once most fitting and of most happy augury, that the return to penny postage should? have been initiated by the farthest-flung of all tho Britains Overseas. Might we not fairly add, “The most British of all, the most loyal of all,” for has not New Zealand been well described as “even more British than. Britain herself.” How true it is that the British Empire stands, not for itself alone, but for the peace, the stability, and the well-being of the whole world, is illustrated by Baron Blyth’s letter to the “Times.” “.Whatever plans the Imperial Conference adopts to reconstruct world commerce must,’’ he urges, “be shorn of half their value without a return to penny postage, in which New Zealand now leads the way,” adding that, if the whole Empire followed this lead, it would solve many problems that now confront statesmen. “Penny postage,” he rightly declares, “is the magic axis round which the wheels of the Empire’s trade and industry will move with ever-increasing momentum.” This is, indeed, true; and it is to be hoped that, as the result of the discussion of this vital matter at the Imperial Conference, penny postage will be adopted at no distant date throughout the British Empire; and shortly thereafter throughout the world. At a critical time like the present no step should be left untaken that tends even in the smallest degree to promote closer and more frequent intercourse, both social and commercial, and therefore a better understanding and more friendly relations between all the peoples of the world.