THE EMPIRE.

Waikato Times, Volume 108, Issue 18165, 1 November 1930, Page 5

THE EMPIRE.

BROAD VISION WANTED. PROTECTION OR FREE TRADE. THE EVILS OF INSULARITY. (By “ Onlooker.”) No one who takes an interest in his country and Empire and what observant, thinking man does not, can feel anything but a genuine disappointment at the breaking down of the main object of the Imperial Conference just concluded in London. The fetish of unrestrained free trade dies hard; impossible now in a changed and changing world, different as chalk from cheese from the insularity of the faraway past. An unimaginative, insular Government lost to us America despite the impassioned pleading of an Irishman, Burke; another Imperialist, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, broke his heart in fighting with tenacity and length of vision to obtain a charter to secure the Dominion for the Empire and for those of us who are blest in being its inhabitants.

There has been lately issued in New Zealand a most fascinating book “ R.D.B’s. Diary ” written by one of the best-known journalists of Fleet Street who has come in contact with every man of moment in all walks of life for the long period of forty years, and who before retiring to bed each night, or early morning, wrote in his diary some short (all too short) facts that came under his notice in the course of his busy daily round. The London Graphic sums his book up as “ the nearest to the modern Pepys which is likely to be published." • It is “ R.D-B's.” comments on the fiscal outlook and crass stupidness—or English insularity, whichever you like—to which I would draw attention. In the failure of the recent negotiations for even a crumb'of inter-Empire protection of trade our far-away Waikato is vitally interested. While the (still jealous, don’t forget) foreigner looks cynically on; while a dour Afrikander returns to his almost independent South Africa with determination to cut adrift his outpost of Empire from the mother of Ms all; while Australia has just done the unbelievable thing and thinks it, too, can carry on without her aid; while Canada has grown to a vigorous manhood and feels the growing pains of nationhood, we' should all take off our hats to Messrs Forbes and Scullln for setting their teeth into Singapore and insisting (successfully for a wonder) on its completion. We may be glad to heartily welcome our Holland friends from, the East. We may be glad of their aid in the “line of flight” 'ere another decade has passed us by. Here are some very pertinent extracts from the diary:— “1891: Colonel Howard Vincent, M.P., sat beside me, and explained to me his attempt yesterday in the House to focus attention on the importance of liaison between the Home Government and the self-governing colonies, such as Australia, Canada and South Africa. He moved that these colonies should be asked to confer with the Imperial Government on the question of the development of inter-Empire trade. He says he made no impression. I But they’ll have to invite them in some day or lose ’em.” -j “ 1900: These post office people are

very conservative. I heard Sir William Preece the chief engineer of the P.O. deliver himself to-day of an unequivocal statement that “ wireless telegraphy, is not and cannot be, a commerciaT success.”

“ 1900: Andrew Carnegie is in town for a few days. I went shopping with him. He wanted some handkerchiefs, etc. When we came out he said that London’s shopping methods are all wrong. ‘ Just took at the jumble in the windows;' he said. 'So much stuff that you cannot take it all in, and when you go into'a shop they treat you almost indifferently. You are scowled at if you -ask for goods out of the ordinary, etc-, etc.’ ” Poverty and Free Trader “December, 1901: “Something .ought to be done by the authorities to wipe out the scandal of the homeless people w r ho are forced to sleep out on these wintry nights. Every bench from Blaclcfriars to Westminster Bridge was filled with shivering people, all huddled up, men, women and children. I talked with Mr Chamberlain about it the other day, and he repeated his known sentiments about our free trade policy being to blame for loss of work. Tf foreign goods were taxed the British workman would have a chance.” “1901: An American business man who came to London a few days before Christmas to do a rapid deal came in to see me to-day to tell me his story of woe. He has been unable to do business for a week because Christmas intervened. ‘ This long break in England,’ he said, ‘ will one day be the undoing of this country. Wherever I go I find the doors locked. Why not have your Christmas and be done with it? Why make it a prolonged loaf? If your trade gets badly hurt one day you may put the damage down to this foolish Christmas layoff.”

“1901: Rider Haggard dined with me to-night, and we discussed the affairs of the world during the past year. He is, of course, full of his ‘ Back to the Land ’ ideas and visualises England a contented nation of smalll agriculturists 'on the Danish system. All he wants is a concerted Governmental movement which he fears is retarded by great landed interests.”

“February, 1908: “Coming home along the Embankment at midnight with Arthur Pearson, we counted fifteen homeless, couples, evidently married out-of-works. Three had children, all barefooted. The midnight poverty of London is one of the most pathetic sights of the metropolis.” “ 1908: I met Rudyard Kipling with his cousin, Stanley Baldwin, the young ironmaster from the West Country, who hopes one day to get into Parliament like his father before him. He is rather shy and not at all politicianlike in his manner and I do not suppose he will do more than follow his leaders if he gets in (he got in as a stopgap). But I should call him a pleasant, cultured, conscientious, but badly dressed (!) 'man without much desire to sit in the limelight. (Lord Beaverbrook has it full upon him now).” “1912: When I came down from Cumberland recently on the GreatNorth Road I appeared to encounter an enormous number of cheap foreign cars, so I determined to see if we could not establish the popularity of British-made cars over the machines produced by foreign countries- I gave a luncheon at the Ritz (here he gives •> list of well-known business men). There were many speeches—the result of a determination to torffi a £5,000,000 company to fight the foreign automo-

bile Invasion (it fell through!) A letter was read from the Duke of Westminster, in which he said that the invasion of the American cars ‘ threatens to deprive thousands of English workers of employment throughout the country to advance the cause of British Imperial preference.’ (R.D.B. in parentheses adds the quip that perhaps the amount of champagne he gave the meeting accounts for the £5,000,000 company never coming into being!).” As one reads ■on he finds himself unconsciously quoting Lewis .Carroll’s “ Through the Looking Glass.” “ The time has come,” the Walrus said, “ To speak of many things, Of shoes and ships and sealing wax, And cabbages and kings.” ■ But indeed both Kings and Premiers used to ring up R.D.B; to consult with him on matters of serious momentThe Now and The Then. This exceedingly interesting book brings home to one the great power an'd influence of the Press on both the minds of the Powers that Be and the general public. It brings home to one the fund of truth lying in analogy. When one compares the now with the then and remembers Lord Roberts, whose work should have been done, stumping the country in a vain endeavour to wake up his countrymen to the danger of the German menace; Sir Henry Wilson being sidetracked because he had been over (on a bicycle), every strategic road in France and many in Germany; and Rider Haggard’s vain effort to try and make England food independent of imports, and now the recent and outstanding statement by one of England’s finest men, Lord. d’Abernon, Britain’s first post-war Ambassador to Germany, who worked magnificently for after-war peace. • A farseeing and practical man, Lord d’Abernon, upon his return to England was made head of a trade delegation to the Argentine, a country where England has so much money invested that'she has not time to listen to the representative of her little daughter,State on the other side’ of the world—oh! dear no; money talks nearer Home, foreigner or no foreigner. The statement is so pertinent to the present situation that I repeat it verbatim and at length. “My thesis throughout -has been that a large importing country like England, which gives free trade conditions, is entitled thereby to better treatment than a protectionist country. The usual foreign contention, expressed or implied, is that, bound by our theories, we are powerless to retaliate, so we can be worse treated than those who can retaliate.

“My personal belief has always been that the vastness of our imports gives us exceptional power to exercise retaliation, and that we are justified in using it if requisite. We should use it effectively—not perhaps a very orthodox free trade doctrine, but a sound, practical one. Free trade treaties have never been negotiated with sufficient vigour ....

“ The draft we have prepared is candidly free trade, but it puts free trade on a negotiating basis, which gives England a chance of obtaining some return for a liberal fiscal policy . . . At first the German experts were unwilling to recognise that any reciprocity was due to England for her treatment of foreign goods. They declined to consider a proposal that our goods should be treated in Germany as theirs wfire in England.

Their main argument was that since we were prohibited by theoretical conceptions from retaliating no special consideration could or should be accorded us by self-respecting and intelligent foreign negotiators. Happily, the experts have been overruled by the political heads of Wilhelmstrasse

. . . H is laid down that the new German tariff will be drawn upon a basis of reciprocity. I believe this is the first time that -such a declaration has been inserted in a commercial treaty. Vc."J Means of Pressure. “ Foreign negotiators have held that England was not entitled to counterconcession, since her own attitude on free trade was adopted in self-inter-est. Personally I have always held that we could obtain better treatment if we fought for it. We have valid arguments and valid means of pressure. English goodwill in commerce and entry into the English market are of such value to a foreign nation that with skilful negotiation considerable return could be obtained for it. I have taken this line when talking to the German negotiators. It was somewhat difficult to reply to their argument that similar claims for England have never been made before.” The above extract is so full of golden sense that 1 feel like stressing every word of it, but alas! While we have Labour platitudinists at the head of affairs the foreigner can continue to work his sweet will, and is doing it. But there is a ray of hope. The time is ripe or rotten ripe for change as Shakespeare hath it, and Lord Beaverbrook’s “ Empire Crusaders ” may storm and capture the crumbling walls of the castle of free trade and give our farflung Empire ils opportunity. England is still “ Home ” to most of us and business and sentiment are by no means things apart.