TE AWAMUTU COURIER. Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. MONDAY, 26th APRIL. 1937. FUTURE OF COLONIES.

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 54, Issue 3894, 26 April 1937, Page 4

TE AWAMUTU COURIER. Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. MONDAY, 26th APRIL. 1937. FUTURE OF COLONIES.

PROPAGANDA on the part of Germany and practice on the part of Italy and Japan have lately called attention to the future of the colonial system. The problem is one which vitally affects British interest, concerned as they are with the administration of colonial territories both extensive and widely scattered. The questions raised in any examination of the subject are well indicated in a pamphlet published a short time ago by tile National Peace Council of Great Britain under the title “Peace and the Colonial Problem." The pamphlet sets out a number of recent speeches on the subject, and together they furnish a useful startingpoint for argument. The chief difficulty disclosed in any proposed reform of the system is how to safeguard the real interest of the native population in the territories concerned and at the same time to preserve the peace of the world as a whole. Four objects, it is commonly said, are chiefly sought by nations which covet colonial possessions: settlement for their surplus peoples, access to the sources of raw materials, markets for their manufactured goods, and the gratification of a desire for prestige. Several of the speakers whose pronouncements are contained in the pamphlet disposed summarily ot the notion about surplus population as “loose and fallacious.” One cf them, Sir Arthur Salter, the distinguished economist, points out that “there is no reason why a country! should not develop a population as thick upon the ground as in a highly

industrialised area, and still maintain itself if it could draw freely upon the resources of the rest of the world.” Markets and raw materials, it is held, could be made available to all equally if genuine free trade prevailed, and the suggestion has been made that a strengthened mandates system would secure equal treatment for all. Prestige appears to be the one entirely intangible factor, but Lord Lothian suggests that if Britain, who owns the bulk of the world’s colonies, were prepared to accept the supervision of the Mandates Commission of the League of Nations, and agree to a transfer of mandated territory, she might convince other nations of her willingness to take seriously the allimportant subject of treaty revision. In any proposal, however, the final and cardinal consideration must be the true interests and desires of the native peoples themselves.