Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, TUESDAY, APRIL 15, 1030. IMPERIAL POLICY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17235, 15 April 1930, Page 6

Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, TUESDAY, APRIL 15, 1030. IMPERIAL POLICY

It is now quite clear .that the atmosphere of the political situation at Home has, within the last low mouths, undergone a definite change. This has been largely due to the ellicicnt and statesman-like manner in which Mr. Baldwin has once more assumed the real leadership of his party and, by his sterling integrity and innate honesty, has cleared up the issues that were threatening to cleave the party in two. General observation of the comments in tlie- latest mails from the Old Country makes it abundantly evident that the Labor Government has been given all thescope it could really expect in which to formulate its policy, and that it must look forward now to something in the nature of real opposition on the part of the Conservatives. There is justification for the belief that the feeling has been growing amongst the other parties in the State that Labor has been paying too much attention to world-wide issues to the detriment of British and Imperial progress. This was, perhaps, only to be expected on the part of the Labor Party under its present leader, who has always seemed to be more inclined to legislate for Man in general rather than for the man next door. One of the modern critics has said of Wordsworth that he preferred to listen to “the still, sad music of humanity” rather than to a concrete story of individual suffering; and in a sense there is a parallel between that point of view and the one evidenced by the British Labor Government. But now the signs are that the Government is going to be invited and assisted to take into its purview the paramount needs of the Empire, and that this work ol' enlightenment is to be taken over by the party in opposition. One of the symptoms of this change in the political atmosphere is that a clear warning has been given to the Labor Government that tlie Unionist Party repudiates in advance any attempts to tie the country down for a period of years to a so-called taril! truce by which the enemy guns arc to 'go on tiring at Britain while she remains obliged to content herself with the obsolete bows and arrows of Free Trade. And there are in addition distinct indications of a feeling that a genuine Imperial policy is imperative and .that the affairs of Empire must be given close, earnest and early study before irreparable damage lias been done to the structure which it has .taken generations of our countrymen to build up. Mr. Baldwin has not yet dealt so fully as lie has promised to do later with the purely Imperial aspects of Britain’s policy, but Kutlicient can be gathered from the views of his followers to indicate what is likely to be expected. Mr. L. S. Amery, in a recent, statement, pointed out that the development of Empire trade is an essential complementary to the safeguarding of the home market. That market is by itself inadequate to meet the needs of many of the great industries, and in the long run, in Mr. Amery’s view, “only the substitution of the Empire for this island as the foundation of our economic system can bring about that ever Higher standard of living for a growing population, or that national economic strength which is the permanent foundation for security, both of which must be the supreme objects of statesmanship.” If the individual nations composing the Empire, on this showing, me content to develop merely in the terms of locally applied policies, (lie result of such policies will not milv cripple the development of the Empire at large, but all'eet. the nations concerned, whose prosperity is bound up with that of the whole partnership of peoples under the British Hag. The United States will not willingly lie taken as an object lesson for many other things, but in regard to her revelation of the energising power of co-operation by a number of free communities in the development of their common resources, she has many lessons to teach which may well lie laid profitably to heart by Great Britain, it should bo remembered that these re-

sources in the United States to which reference is being made, are far less than those at the disposal of the British Empire. The usual objection arises in the mind in this connection when one begins to ponder the immense area and the vast distances that must be taken into consideration when making- proposals for Imperial development; but again it should be realised that the United .States has no economic facilities for co-operation that are in any degree superior to those of Britain. One of the trenchant and striking facts brought to light a few weeks ago by an eminent British economist is that the economic distance from Great Britain of New Zealand, reckoned in freight charges, was 500 miles by rail, which is not much more than half the distance that separates New York from Chicago. It is an impressive and encouraging reminder, and one that should be seriously pondered by all concerned, as affording needed evidence of the fact that physical geography has but little to do with distance in its economic aspect. Costs are the only consideration. Mr. Baldwin did declare, in his speech in London last February, that the economic, unity of the Empire was the goal to be attained, and to be kept steadily in view; but one of the aspects of the situation not to be disregarded is that this particular goal is not a stationary entity that will remain unchanged until we are ready to make our way towards it after we have disposed of.other interests. The fact is that, working against the economic and political policies and ideals that strive constantly for the realisation of unity, there are other policies and ideals that arc making for disintegration. General .Smuts recently reminded Canada that on the political side, the implications of the doctrines of equality of status have been severing many of the old ties that held the Empire together, and have made it all the more essential that a reconstruction of the former unity should be attempted. Most will agree with Mr. Amery that it is along economic lines that such work can be most successfully accomplished. South Africa and, in more recent times, India, have presented their own peculiar problems to those who seek for Imperial unity, but the causes governing those difficulties need not be entered into here. Enough has been said to show the gratifying fact that the leaders of the constitutional party at Home are fully alive to the need's of the Empire as a whole, and it may be expected that when the distractions and preoccupations of the Naval Conference are over, Mr. MacDonald will be made aware of the new spirit which is even now animating his opposition.