DOOMSDAY BOOK

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17410, 7 November 1930, Page 7

DOOMSDAY BOOK

FOR EMPIRE INDUSTRY CAPITAL MIGRATION LONDON, October 26. “A broad Umpire needs a broad policy,” declared .Professor John Coatman, first Professor of Empire economic relations, -delivering his first lecture. He occupies the new Fhair established at the University of London by the Empire Marketing Board. Professor Coatman expressed the hope that centres of similar work and thought would be established throughout the Empire. Me pointed out that, a century ago, capital and population flowed from all parts of Britain to the northern coal and iron districts. At present they were moving again, mainly southward “Why should these industries and people not How as easily to Australia. New Zealand, Canada, and Africa? Emigration can seldom succeed when confined to one aspect of movement, namely, of people. Organised as a migration of industry, capital and men, it wduld be very different. As new industries are started, why not start them where they can be most efficiently carried out, British people moving with them?” DOMINION NAT lON ALA LISM. “Is it not hefter.” Professor Coatman asked, “that the woollen and cotton industries should be spread over the Empire, rather than concentrated in Yorkshire and Lancashire? Surely this is the key to the reconciliation ot the economic nationalism of the Dom inions with those interests themselves in Great Britain.” The first step to moving whole in dustries was the control of capital, which should be directed to the development of the Empire rather than to foreign investments. A mortgage bank, financing Imperial development, might he considered. Negotiations were already umb" way for investigating as a piece of Imperial teamwork, the movement of capital within the Empire—a sort of Imperial financial Doomsday Book.