EMPIRE TRADE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21019, 7 May 1930, Page 23

EMPIRE TRADE.

LORD MELCHETT’S VIEWS, CLOSER RELATIONS. PEELING IN SOUTH AFRICA. (From Ouu Own Correspondent.) LONDON, March 27. Lord Melchctt, head of Imperial Chemical Industries, has been iu> South Africa, combining pleasure and business. In the latter connection he interviewed chambers of commerce,- addressed the Inter-parlia-mentary Federation in the Legislative Assembly, and meetings at Johannesburg, Durban, East Loudon, and Port Elizabeth, and had discussions with the Prime Minister and other members of the Government and with General Smuts. Now, on his return to London, he. says that feeling in South Africa is quite favourable to anything that would tend towards closer trade relations with the Empire. . It was harmful and untrue for people at Home to say of Imperial Economic Unity that the dominions were unwilling to take any steps towards it. Lord Melchctt said he expected that of all the dominions South Africa would have been the most unfavourable, but the general'spirit was quite favourable towards closer trade relations. • Sir Abe Bailey has undertaken the formation of a South African Imperial Economic Unity Committee, and in view of assurances of support from a number of important industrialists and commercial people, Lord Melchctt anticipates the setting up of a useful body. EMPIRE ECONOMIC UNITY. The essential difference. Lord Melchctt said, between those who, like him, advocated Empire Economic Unity and those who spoke for Empire Frcetrade was that the latter was understood by most people to mean the abolition of all tariffs between different parts of the Empire. “ That/’ ho commented, “ would be an enormous step forward, but I feel as a practical person that it cannot be done under present circumstances.” After he had swept these misconceptions away, he found a desire to get to grips with the problem. Lord Melchctt welcomed Mr Baldwin's pronouncement on the question of Empire trade, and deprecated men sincerely aiming at the same ideal dividing forces on methods and questions, some of which were still purely hypothetical. There were large potentialities for development about South Africa, declared Lord Melchctt, aud the momentary difficulties resulting'from the depression in prices of her primary agricultural commodities would disappear when world markets re-established themselves.