Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-11-03
BY C. PATRICK THOMPSON.

| TIME alchemists of old were never
more excited by the idea of an
elixir of youth than Britain is by
| the conviction that somewhere
lies the key to the magic door
through which she can pass from the
| economic shadows onto the broad and
shining prosperity path which America
blithely treadS.
She thinks she has found the key-oT,
rather, a small but enormously powerful
group of her national leaders do. It
| reposes in the minds and the wills OF
men. The empire must be merged.
The idea of merging the British en-
pire to form a free trade unit around
which a tariff wall can be thrown after
| the American manner-except that this
wall would wind over seas and CONT
nents. clear around the planets not
entirely new But it was a thing as re-
mote and elusive as the aforesaid elixir
of youth until a sequence of events III
the Summer of this year suddenly
dragged it down from the realms OF
fantasy and gave it solid shape and
driving power and a jumping-of point
in politics.
Accused by the die-hard Morning
Post of having large part in the de-
feat of Baldwin and company, Lord
Beaverbrook, the Canadian newspaper
magnate, vowed that If he were not for
Baldwin he, at least was for the en-
pire and imperial fiscal union: and he
announced stentoriouSly that the regen-
Grafton of the Conservative party lies
along the one bread road of an eco
nomic policy for the empire. That
started landslide that probably sur
prised even the optimistic Beaverbrook,
an expert in mergerS-he made his
great fortune in bank and cement
mergers and drew his peerage by way
Of commission for merging political fac
tons in war time.
Trio Gives Move Impetus.
But he had propounded a method.
The mass, he asserted, never got any,
thing started and never would. All
great decisive movements are achieved
by a crusade carried on by small
group of resolute men animated by the
crusading spirit. A crusade must there
fore be started, to hammer away inside
and outside the. political parties until
the majority are converted and swung
into the movement, which can then be
translated by politico-economic action
into the big merger
A Jew, a Scot and an Englishman i'm
mediately joined the Canadian in the
van Of the new crusade. There were, of
course, others Crowds have joined
since) but this trio must be mentioned
because it represents politico-cconomic
Sagacity at its zenith.
The Scot Is Sir Harry MCGOWAN, ar
chitect of the $500000,000 Imperial
Chemical Industries trust and its presi-
dent. a big business leader with many
Affiliations with America. His aStute-
ness may be gagged from the fact that
when he was chairman of the huge
Nobel Industries business he invested
around $20,000,000 Of the company's
funds in General Motors Corporation
stock long before its phenomenal rise.
He began life as an ONCE boy at dol
lar week, and is only middle-aged
now.
The Jew is Lord Melchett the former.
Alfred Mond, an industrial statesman
who has deep and ramified roots In in
dustry and finance on both sides of the
Atlantic. He has carried out some of
the greatest mergers in industrial his
tory, including the $60,000,000 nickel
merger. He controls Anglo-American
finance trusts. the biggest chemical
group and the biggest anthracite group.
1t was he who started the peace-in-in-