The Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro, THURSDAY JULY 28, 1932. IMPERIAL PROBLEMS

Southland Times, Issue 21771, 28 July 1932, Page 6

The Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro, THURSDAY JULY 28, 1932. IMPERIAL PROBLEMS

Although the work of the Currency Committee has only begun, it is becoming clearer that the delegates at Ottawa are realizing that the Mother Country cannot be asked to go any lengths in according further advantages to the dominions without involving herself with other nations to whom she must look for trade and without risking increasing her own production costs, with a consequent reaction pf an unfavourable character on her export business. The Currency Committee is to take up its early work without consulting bankers, and possibly this may lead to the development of some comprehensive scheme on which the bankers may be asked to comment. Trade agreements and movements in tariff levels may result from some of the discussions and negotiations, but it is obvious that the Imperial problems must be tackled on Imperial lines, and not in a sectional way. South Africa, which adheres to the gold standard, may stand in the way of an Imperial monetary system, but if there is agreement among the othei’ units of the Empire, South Africa will see the advantages of joining in even if that step requires a departure from the gold standard. Of course, it may be possible to overcome that difficulty, and to provide the Empire with a monetary system which by pooling the financial strength of the Empire will do away with all problems of exchange within the Empire and so give all the dominions and the Motherland trade advantages in which no discrimination can arise. A single currency cannot fail to assist trade within the Empire, and even if full allowance be made for temporary difficulties, the consummation of this idea should not be beyond the genius of the politicians and the financial experts. It is clear that questions of tariffs and preferences raise all manner of sectional complexities, but these would not occur in any proposals which aim at a general change, affecting the whole Empire and evolving an Imperial structure, through which barriers which now make the dominions individual economic units can be swept away. It seems to us that the deliberations of the Currency Committee are by far the most important and that if it can evolve a practical scheme to supply the Empire with a uniform £ the Ottawa Conference will be the success its promoters hoped.