GREAT BRITAIN’S RESOURCES.

Taranaki Daily News, 12 December 1931, Page 6

GREAT BRITAIN’S RESOURCES.

Many times in its history has the breakup of the British Empire seemed imminent. From the time the United States of America broke away to the end of the Crimean War there were never prophets lacking to declare that Britain’s strength was declining and that dissolution was at hand. It has remained for a presentday economist, Sir George Paish, 'to extend the prophecy of gloom to the whole world. Britain is badly off, France is worse and the United States is in the most parlous state of all. Those three leaders of civilisation being down and out, and every bank in the world, according to Sir George, being insolvent, it only remained for him to fix a time limit to complete the picture of universal woe. General ruin, Sir George says, is due in two months, and he warns the world in general accordingly. Were his position as an economist less known it might ba thought that like the fat boy in “Pickwick” Sir George was anxious to make people’s flesh creep. But when his outbursts appear to lead only to a condemnation of anything but free' trade for Britain he has only himself to blame if bis observations are treated as biassed by his political creed rather than as pure deductions from facts. So far as Britain is concerned history has refuted many gloomy forebodings, and one member of the Cabinet there is not afraid to challenge them now. No Minister of the Crown in any part of the Empire can treat Or speak of present day problems without a strong sense of responsibility. It is all the more stimulating to hear the British President of the Board of Trade, Mr. W. Runciman, assert that the position of Great Britain is not so perilous as some would have the country believe. In regard to supplies of foodstuffs the Minister sees no need for panic because the pound sterling is no longer worth twenty shillings in foreign markets. Without specifying the Dominions, Mr. Runciman has reminded Parliament that meat, wheat and dairy produce come from “countries in which the sterling is the basis.” His remarks were in justification of the Government’s decision to hasten slowly in regard to the introduction of a general tariff. The anticipation of that policy and the fall in sterling lias already produced reprisals from foreign countries, and the Ministry’s claim that the effect of a tariff must be thoroughly well explored before it is introduced, seems logical and politically sound. The Minister’s statement seems to indicate that the High Commissioner for New Zealand, Sir Thomas Wilford, was not far off the mark when he claimed that there was in Great Britain an unmistakable mood for Empire trading. When a former strict free-trader like Mr. Runciman admits the necessity of a tariff and relies upon Dominion supplies to counteract its effect upon foreign imports it is a definite indication of the British public’s change of view. Speaking for the Government, and as the Minister holding the portfolio which should give him the fullest knowledge of all the commercial difficulties that lie ahead, Mr. Runciman exhorts his country, and with it the Empire, not to lose heart. If the problems are great so are the resources of the Empire, provided they are wisely co-ordinated. That - coordination must be evolved as speedily as possible but its attainment will certainly not be aided by invoking a spirit of panic.