The Wanganui Chronicle. "NULLA DIES SINE LINEA." WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 23, 1922. ORGANISING COLONIAL RESOURCES.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18566, 23 August 1922, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. "NULLA DIES SINE LINEA." WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 23, 1922. ORGANISING COLONIAL RESOURCES.

‘'France has successfully governed Oriental peoples” states Lord Sydenham iai a very interesting study dedicated to the French nation, published a few weeks ago in trie! “Revue de Paris.” Drawing a comparison between the policy of Downing Street ' and that of Quay d’Orsay, Lord Sydenham argues that while Great Britain’s primary duties in India are to ensure order and to carry out the laws and to administer the country in the best interest of the masses for whose well-being England has assumed responsibility—in comparison with which all other functions are ot secondary importance; while he maintains that the sight of India drifting for the last five years towards anarchy must appear to the French people astonishing and inexplicable, he repeats the old dictum that if India should be lost at Westminster, the loss would be caused by politicians’ interference with the Government; and he emphasises the fact that the authority of any Western. Power can be endangered in ths East. France, ou the other baud, is determined to organise and improve her colonial resources, and is now I doing her utmost to fire the imagination of all Frenchmen with the grandeur of her colonial empire. With this aim in view, a French Colonial Exhibition, organised at Marseilles, was opened in May, when the Minister of Colonies officially stated that the purpose tor which the mighty Colonial resources of France have been sampled and displayed at Marseilles. France had long been busily preparing this exhibition, which is perhaps the most notable ever held in the country. Au area of nearly TOO acres has been reserved, and visitors can see at this ■exhibition samples of the various goods France is able to export to her Colonics, while the enormous wealth which is poured yearly iuto France 1 by the various Colonies is displayed I all over the exhibition. The study j of these displays is described by visitors who have seen the exhibition as being most interesting. Thus, products from French Somalicoast, from Martinique, Guadaloupe, French, Guiana, New Caledonia, the New Hebrides, or from Isle de Reunion and from St. Pierre and Miquelon, make a wonderful display; but the enormous variety of products from Indo-China, from Morocco, Algeria and Tunis, from French West Africa and Equatorial Africa and from Madagascar, all testify, indeed, to the riches and wealth of France’s Colonial possessions and the grandeur of these. Most important conferences are held at the exhibition, dealing with such questions as health, production, equipment and organisation of the Colonies; and as the exhibition is to be held open until November this year, it is expected that many visitors from all the above-mentioned Colonies will journey to France for the purpose of getting in personal contact with French manufacturers, import and export merchants, shopkeepers, hotel owners, export agents and consumers; and as each Colony has been entrusted with the preparation of its own pavilion, having responded to the call of the French capital by sending over contingencies of native craftsmen to ensure that the local colouring shall be as accurate as possible in every detail, Marseilles will certainly be a meet-ing-place where the French consumer of Colonial products and French manufacturers and export merchants engaged in exporting French manufactures will meet, and have ample opportunities ot laying plans for : future expansion of French Colonial trade. Although primarily of inter- ’ est to Frenchmen, the exhibition is

an. eye-opener to everybody who is interested in trading in the Orient and the Tropics, and British manufacturers and merchants, whether from the United Kingdom or from Canada, or from Australia, New Zealand, the West Indies or Hongkong, should find in thiig great and commendable French effort an inspira-

tion to co-operate in making the forthcoming British Empire Exposition pre-eminently successful. From an influential trade review we gather that the French example has already served a good purpose in the United Kingdom. “Like France,’’ says this review, “we in this country should now make supreme efforts towards creating better trade relations with the British Dominions and Colonies. As is the case in regard to Australia, we are losing our trade in Canada, in

Newfoundalnd and in several other countries, owing to lack of co-opera-tion. It has been said over and over again that the best customers for British-made goods are the overseas Britishers—a statement that is far too little appreciated in this country. Ambulating tradeships may be very well, and perhaps create some trade; but it is not enough. The crux of the whole matter lies in our adopting preferential treatment, in untiring efforts in trying to convince the overseas Britisher that. England can and will sell to him what he wants at prices just as cheap as may he offered him by the foreigner, and by practically demonstrating to him that anything he produces in the shape of products can at any time find a ready market in the United Kingdom.”