The Timaru Herald TUESDAY, JULY 12, 1938 THE BASIS OF EMPIRE DEVELOPMENT.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21086, 12 July 1938, Page 6

The Timaru Herald TUESDAY, JULY 12, 1938 THE BASIS OF EMPIRE DEVELOPMENT.

It is generally agreed that for the trade and commerce of the world there is, and always will be, intense competition; indeed, only by its expansion can the mercantile marine of all countries prosper. Hence it will be seen that something more than subsidised shipping lines is needed to maintain the British mercantile marine on the seas of the world. We refer, of course, to Dominion and Colonial development which is, after all, the key to prosperity. In the past twenty years many millions of British investments have been lost overseas, but the Commonwealth of British Nations as well as the Colonial Empire still offer the safest deposits for accumulated wealth of the Old Land. Discussing the problem the oilier day the Agent-General for Western Australia said: “What is needed to-day is not only Investment in the Government stocks of the Dominions —though for that there is ample room—but the men behind the money: men of light and leading who, in preference to the easy luxury of Stock Exchange speculation as a means of increasing their wealth, are willing to face risk and some hardship in order to do something to expand the wealth of the Empire, and to justify its existence as a factor for world good. If this factor is lacking, then let us have some new schemes, or failing either, remember that “without vision the people perish.” Obviously the future of the British Mercantile Marine, and the future of the British Dominions, are linked together as they have been from the beginning. It was the ships, built and equipped by the merchant adventurers <d' earlier years, that carried the trade and commerce of England to the four corners of the globe, and in the doing of it “placed the wide bounds of our Empire in the sunrise and the sunset.” It is recognised that without the British mercantile marine there would have been no Dominions. Without these Dominions the mercantile marine could never have expanded as it. has done. In the very nature of things it follows that in the further development of the Dominions lies the fairest hope of prosperity and the expansion of the British mercantile marine. But within the past few years, another factor has somewhat upset the close relationship that, has been created and maintained between the Overseas Dominions 1 the Homeland. We refer of course to the menace to British shipping, particularly in the Pacific, reposing in the activities of many foreign shipping lines carrying rich State subsidies providing not only for construction of new steamers but for the maintenance of the lines through rich subsidies for the carriage of mails and passengers. This challenge to the future of British mercantile marine on the Seven Seas of the world has not been ignored by the Imperial authorities, much less by the Governments of Canada, Australia and New Zealand, as the debate in the House of Commons last week indicated. Nevertheless it is only too plain that the problem of Colonial and Dominion development, the future of the British mercantile marine, and maintenance of trade relations between the Dominions and the Homeland are so inextricably bound up together that only by the closest co-operation and mutual understanding between Hie Imperial authorities and the Dominions will the problem be solved.