THE FUTURE OF THE EMPIRE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19529, 11 July 1925, Page 7

THE FUTURE OF THE EMPIRE.

TO THE EDITOR. SxrJ —Respecting your loading article of the 9th inst., it is well to real iso that wo aro at last waking up to tho fact that sontimont, and sentiment alone, cannot keep, tho Empire intact. Tho ties that hold tho Mother Country and tho daughter Slates together aro quite inadequate in this fierce commercial ago. In fact, if history can bo of any service, unless we are prepared to consolidate tho British race industrially and commercially we cannot hope to meet successfully tho clash of foreign competition. However the idealist may glory in the idea that sontimont alone lias kept tho Empire together in tho ptist, tho economic fiiot must now bo accepted that “our existence as an Empire depends upon our manufacturing capacity and production. Xh© privileges of Empiro bring with them great responsibilities. As Mr Joseph Chamberlain pointed out over 20 years ago, with decent organisation and consolidation wo could become absolutely self-sustaining. There is no article of food', no raw material, no necessity or luxury of life which cannot bo produced plentifully somewhere within tho four walls of our Empire if tho Empiro holds together, and we who have inherited it are worthy of our opportunities. Whilst tho Old Country is still struggling against fearful odds, and thousands of hor ex-servioo men, gaunt and hungry, are seeking in vain for employment, Empiro contracts aro going to Germany and elsewhere When the average well-to-do farmer purchases a now motor car ho invariably buys an American because it may bo cheaper on first outlay than the British. He would just as soon buy a German car if the price, eto., would meet his requirements, When it comes to tho question of marketing his produce tho same farmer turns to the Old Country and grumbles if the market is not up to his expectations. 1 ask, in all sincerity. Where is tho sentiment that induces a so-called Britisher to make his money by selling to Great Britain while whenever ho purchases he goes to her trade competitors? Was ever business transacted on more contemptible lines? If such business was carried to its logical conclusions the Old Country would have to go into bankruptcy and the short-sighted farmer seek elsewhere and in vain for a market for his surplus produce, Tho more we buy from Britain the more Britain will be able to buy from us. For every man to whom the short-sighted farmer refuses employment in England and Scotland _by purchasing foreign manufacturers, ho just as surely loses a customer for his own produce. Furthermore, has it ever occurred to tho purchasers of foreign manufactures that without tho British navy these manufactures could bo kept out by a hostile fleet, and that the American and Japanese firms that raced their goods here during the war did so mainly under the protection of tho very navy which was paid for by tho taxation levied on British manufactures of a similar typo of goods produced prior to the outbreak of hostilities? Whether or no, happy should bo the purchasers of Homo manufactures, for as certainly as all taxation is a charge on production so does the purchaser of a British car indirectly contribute towards tho revenue out of which tho very existence of tho navy depends—ayo, and if tho Navy League be right, God’s own country ns well.

Neither sentiment alone nor greed ever made or saved an empire. How tragic is tho fate of Spain, which discovered the New World and has preserved for itself today in a direct wav nothing whatever of that great, achievement of cilivisation ! The sorry plight of Spain could bo so sketched that wo Britishers, scattered as we are in tho widest-flung Umpire tho world has ever known, could bo brought to realise that an historical parallel is threatening us. We as an Empire are growing selfish; we are evading the things that really matter with out realising the error of our way. What is tho lesson we might derive from Venice, from Holland, from tho Hanseatic States? They were in their time as our London is to-day, tho centres of distributive wealth, and tho world’s centres of finance. Now their greatness has passed away. Thev had no productive and creative energy behind them to hack them up, and when competition came—as it is coming to our Empire—they had to give place to other nations that were more substantially organised.

It should bo observed that history wears thoroughly masculine features and it is not for sentimental nature,'. Only bravo and enterprising nations have a secure existence, a future, a development. Weak and internally self-seeking nations and cm. pires tro tn the wall, and rightly so. Can wo, after having inherited so much from (hose who have gone before, afford to slfght tho lesson? —I aiii, etc., llehbed.t E. Guilds, Kurow, July 9,