THE BEAVERBROOK CAMPAIGN

Otago Witness, Issue 3958, 21 January 1930, Page 29

THE BEAVERBROOK CAMPAIGN

“DOING REAL HARM.”

SIR STANLEY MACHIN'S OPINION (From Our Own Correspondent.)

LONDON, December 10. Sir Stanley Machin, addressing the London Commercial Club, said that he did not see eye to eye witli Lord Beaverbrook and those who were so strongly advocating the policy, of Freetrade within the Empire. It was a splendid ideal, but one which in his opinion it was perfectly impossible to realise. He would go farther and say that in pressing forward this policy real harm was being done. Whatever people might choose to do in this country he was satisfied the dominions would never entertain the idei of abandoning a fiscal policy on which the maintenance and development of their home industries depended. The solution of industrial problems in the Mother Country depended mainly on the development of Empire trade, but this should be secured by the encouragement of reciprocal trading within the Empire. He was satisfied that there we should be on safe ground. This was a practical proposition which, if carried out, would result to the advantage not only of the Mother Country, but the Empire as a whole.

“We see the Lord Privy Seal, Mr J. H. Thomas, manfully grappling with the gigantic problem of unemployment,” said Sir Stanley. “ The task seems almost beyond the capacity of any man to accomplish. There is only one solution of tha problem—the encouragement and development of industry and commerce, with which is essentially bound up the development of overseas trade. This is no party question, and ought to be kept free from all political considerations. We should gather together the best brains in the country—statesmen, bankers, industrialists. and trade unionists—and thoroughly thrash out this vital question impartially.”