THE NEW ERA.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20426, 5 June 1928, Page 13

THE NEW ERA.

trend of empire development SURVEY OF WORLD AFFAIRS. (From Ora Own Correspondent.) LONDON, April 21. The Hon. L. S. Amery was the chief cmest at the Royal Colonial Institute dinner this week, and afterwards he spoke on the subject of “ The Empire in the New Era.” At the end of his scholarly speech the Dominions’ Secretary said that he might perhaps seem a dreamer to some of his audience, but coming back from his tour with his njind full of what he had seen of the wonderful resources of the Empire, with a sense of the living pulse of a national and Imperial spirit which he had met everywhere he had gone, he was inclined to think that the dreamers were those who were incapable of realising that a new day had dawned and a new problem of Empire was before them. Certainly one felt that Mr Amery had the courage to point the way of progress, fully realising that he had the hide-bound obstinacy of a large proportion of the nation against him. His mission now is to proclaim the passing of the day of freetrade, the dawn 'of a new era when only the closest co-opera-tion between all parts of the Empire and a form of fiscal preference are the only means of progress. How long the lesser people of the nation will cling to their pre-war prejudices and refuse to face the facts is another question. There was no doubt, he said, that both the Empire itself and the world generally were to-day at the threshold of an entirely new era. It was entering upon a new phase of organisation. The question we all had to ask ourselves was whether the British Empire was in conformity with the whole trend of world advancement, and could we hold our own ? The Imperial Conference of 1920 marked the close of one era in the history of the Empire and the beginning of another. This co-partnership of the parts of the Empire was a most remarkable phenomenon in the history of nations, and though it had drawn little attention it was most significant because of its difference from all other national developments of history. EMPIRE CITIZENSHIP.

The Crown was not only a symbol but a very real form of union. In virtue of the fact that we had one common Crown, we were all of us fellow subjects of that Crown. As subjects of the King we owed loyalty not only to the King but to each other. All the Parliamentarians of the Empire owed allegiance to the same Crown, and every citizen of the Empire had obligations to all the other citizens of the Empire. There was nothing whatever to prevent the British Empire from breaking up except the will of the people to remain united. That will had proved itself in the past. Was there any reason to believe that it would be less strong in the future? The pressure from the outside world was making better cooperation desirable and imperative. As a result of the Great War we had seen the fulfilment of the ideal of racial and linguistic nationalism —self determination. But the countries of Europe were beginning to discover that where races were so mixed it was difficult to find any real frontier. The “ Balkanis* ing” of , Europe, it was being realised, was hampering the freedom of the various people in those countries. There was the dread of war and there were the inevitable tariff troubles. The people of Europe were beginning to recognise that they had shrunk; they were weak both from a military and an economic point of view as compared with the great nations outside Europe. The whole of the navies of Europe could not stand up against the British Navy, nor against the American nor the Japanese navies without the intervention of one of the others. Divided as they were, the nations of Europe could t.ot compete with America. There was beginning to grow up in Europe the idea of some general combination of all European nations. Already the business world of Europe had developed along those lines, and he believed that some such cooperation would have to come in Europe. THE UNITED STATES. A wide gulf separated the United States from the nations which we considered great. The whole population of the United States was only 6 per cent, of the world /population, yet they absorbed three-quarters of the world’s output of rubber and oil, and two-thirds of the world’s output of silk. Of the 24,000,000 motor vehicles in the world nearly 20,000,000 were inside the United States. Sixty-one per cent, of the world’s telephones were in the States. Their whole organisation was on a different plane froq* that of the bid world—a plane of immense mass production enabling great wealth to be gained by individuals and enabling the workmen to cari> wages far in excess of the wages earned in the old world.

We had got over the optimism of the post-war period. All was not yet right and it was likely to be less right. Wages in Great Britain to-day were on an average 60 per cent, higher than those in Germany; 80 per cent, higher than France; 100 per cent, higher than Italy; and 112 per cent, higher than those of Belgium. How then could we hope to stand up against those countries in certain industries, or against the enormous scale of American production. The whole growth of a crop in one of our Dominions was not equal to the two or three per cent, surplus that in some years America was ready to throw upon the British markets.

THE ALTERNATIVES. There were two alternatives. Great Britain would have to be absorbed into Europe, and the Dominions would become a' subordinate extension of the United States. That would be the breaking up of the British Empire. On the other hand, the dominions and the Mother Country could get together in order to make use of the great resources which they had at their disposal. We had within our own power, if we were only willing and ready to develop it, a wider home market than either the United States or Europe. Pan-Britan-nica could hold its own against any PanAmerica or Pan-Europe combination. We needed co-operation in markets, cooperation in research, co-operation in everything that affected economical development, and at the same time he was convinced that effective fiscal preference was essential in any policy of cooperation. He did not believe that we could make real progress in migration or in trade so long as we held to the fanatical policy of another age.

He had come back from his tour with an appreciation of all the difficulties which beset the problems of Imperial organisation, but with the conviction that there was not one of them that could not with goodwill be overcome. To-day we were only ?*t the beginning of the British Empire. iVonderful as was the history of the Empire in the past, the most splendid chapter was still' before us if only wc had the power of will, the broad view, and the courage to act.