NATIONALISM: TRADE

Taranaki Daily News, 4 June 1935, Page 5

NATIONALISM: TRADE

DISTRIBUTION OF MATERIALS. LECTURE BY MR. G. JOBBERNS. The problem of eccMmic nationalism in a world built on the exploitation of coal, iron and petroleum resources located in small areas was dealt with by Mr. G. Jobberns in his lecture on "The Age of Discovery” to 'the Society for Imperial Culture at Christchurch. “Without transportation facilities,” said Mr. Jobberns, “economic endeavour must be confined to a small area—man’s needs must be satisfied from that land which his own people occupies. But to-day no important community of men lives entirely unto itself. Our geographers commonly seem to think they do, however, for we are prone to teach geography as if we were so many groups of Robinson Crusoes subsisting on what our little piece of the earth can give us. “Transportation facilities to-day are so extensive and so complex that the great industrial communities reach out to every corner of the earth in the quest for foodstuffs and the raw materials to feed their machines. So all parts of the earth, ail communities of men are more or less dependent on the powerful metal-power-science centres of the world whether they like it or not. “International trade developed quickly. with the provision of security of transport, uniform currency, weight standards, land the like, Business was nurtured by State support—but business has sometimes grown more powerful than the State and revolts against governmental activity in the economic sphere. INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS. “After the great mechanical revolution many industries grew too. large to be confined within any single state and have built up world-wide markets and found their own territories entirely inadequate as a source of supply of 'raw materials. The final stage has been the development of giant corporations with world-wide interests, and many, in .order to secure certainty of supply of raw materials, have acquired property rights in the natiiral wealth of other peoples. Some, by making loans to foreign nations, have greatly aided a few, but reduced all to a stat® of■ financial dependence. Huge foreign investments made by the few metal-power-science centres of heavy industry have created a situation of world-wide interdependence, nominally on a basis of private business relationships, but actually involving political implications of the gravest nature. “Moreover, the mechanical revolution has raised the efficiency of production and transport to 'such a pitch as would appear fantastic 30 years ago. This has created an economic situation with which the political philosophies and institutions of earlier days are quite unable to cope. Culbertson says, ‘We live at once in a modern world of industry and natural science, and in an ancient world of ethical, social and political standards.’ IS NATIONALISM THE GOAL? “The expanding field of economic endeavour, and the widening gap between political beliefs and traditional institutions on the one, hand, and economic realities on the other have created a problem with which two major schools of thought attempt to grapple. , One school sees salvation in national selfsufficiency—sees the nation as it has developed in the last few centuries to be the very climax of political wisdom the culmination of institutional history, to strengthen which is the sacred duty of every statesman. Instead of, pointing to the world war as an inevitable result of a policy of economic nationalism, such statesmen, more convinced than ever that national security must be placed above every economic and social consideration, capitalise this stupid catastrophe in order to recharge the batteries of nationalism. “The other school preaches the doctrine of internationalism—urges absolute freedom of trade—points out the advantages of a regional specialisation in that form of activity for which each particular par.t of the earth is by nature best fitted. These thinkers believe that there should be no reason why the forces which operate within a nation cannot operate within the whole world as a unit. They realise ' that economic equality is of doubtful value in a world of political inequality, but they believe that free economic intercourse among nations will rob this political inequality of its significance and usher in an era of human brotherhood and the nationality of man. INDUSTRIAL RESOURCES LOCALISED “Unfortunately for the realisation of this ideal, the mechanical • revolution, which is the great divider of history, is also the great divider of mankind. Those nations blessed with the rare combination of mineral resources in iron and coal have achieved immense power and wealth. To such power and wealth all the rest of the world cannot possibly rise. International ‘laissez-faire’ cannot bring equality in these . circumstances. These powers so blessed with mineral wealth are the great metropolitan centres of modern industry to which the rest of the world pays tribute—the more so since industry begets finance, as commerce did in earlier ages, and foreign investments of capital further strengthen the economic domination of the. industrial centres. . “A world economy in which a few people have so much and so many have relatively so little cannot last. Whatever economy the future may bring, eighteenth century individualism, nineteenth century nationalism and mid-Vio-

torian imperialism can have no place. Man has no choice but to grapple somehow or other with' the problem of a world planning of the utilisation of the world’s resources. We must find a new institutional order—are, indeed, struggling already to find the way to it. Rising nationalism already tramples down the rights of the individual and of business corporations; the Orient will industrialise itself or die in the attempt. All thisi does not seem to point to any real improvement of world conditions, but it demonstrates that no social, economic, or political order yet evolved can bs regarded as stable. “What is already happening in England may occur in other industrial countries as well—i.e.j a decentralising of industry. The cost of production of electrical power from coal has been so cheapened and the cost of transmission cheapened, too, that industry has wandered away from the coalfield and spread over the south, especially near London. DECENTRALISATION POSSIBLE. “It seems likely that a decentralising of industry on a world-wide scale is imminent—it may possibly have the effect in New Zealand of stimulating our secondary industries in spite of our deficiency in power resources. We may suppose that it will occur in proportion to decline in our export of primary produce. It will, however, be only a phase—a throwback temporarily to a stage of self-sufficient nationalism in this country. But scientific geography will ultimately come into its own. There must sooner or later be a scientific and systematic appraisal of the producing,capacity of the whole world—a regional specialisation in production—and this will demand a freedom of interchange of commodities hitherto unknown. “Then when man devises some scheme or other to secure a reasonable share of the comforts of our machine age production to all the peoples of the earth, we have attained something of an economic and social millenium. . Then an d then only will man utilise sensibly and fully the gifts that nature offers him.