Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-11-03
Merging a Great Empire
Ares Shadows

have knocked the United States side
ways. What, then, prevented scheme
for fiscal union from being carried
through by this people?"
Libraries could be filled with the vol
umes written to supply an answer. but
when you have said "clashing economic
interests, intervening seas and the po-
litical limitations of man" you have
said IN essence almost everything there
is to say.
However formidable as these three
obstacles may look, the crusaders are
boldly on the march against them. They
aim to bridge the space difficulty by
speeded-up communications by land,
sea and air and the incubation of the
inter-empire travel habit. and remove
the human difficulties by campaigns,
suaSion, inter-empire negotiation and a
strong right arm.
Britain Reaches Dangerous Age.
They are helped by the fact that the
British empire has reached It's third
Stage-and its dangerous age. AS Sir
Robert Hadfield, the great steel mag
nate, told the Association of British
Chambers of Commerce in october, I'VE
have reached a highly critical phase.
During the next few years we
in our empire must either coaleSe or,
indignation must occur"
Empires today survive only so long
as they serve gigantic purpose and
so long as men like them and want
them. The cement that binds them is
business plus the defense factor. If the
empire means hourishing trade and
money for your pocket, you are for 1t.
II 1t means you are secured against
attack by aggressive neighbors, you are
for 1t. But If it doesn't seem to offer
much beyond glory, you are not for it,
and you vote for secession.
In England all the old stirring slogans
of empire have decayed. The thin
red line" Is at heavy discount. Brit
ish boys are not reading with any en-
thuSiaSm the stories of the lives of the
empire builders. Astute imperialist
politicians, the great industrial leaders,
the shipping magnateS and the Shrewd-
ly-advised heir to the throne have dis
carded the Victorian and Edwardian
brands of empire propaganda and go
to a modern-zimmern the author
for hints on how to put the empire idea
over on a postwar generation which
is largely disillusioned, critical, ques-
tiOning and completely immune to the
type Of brassy propaganda that set
British hearts af1re when Rhodes was
capturing chunks of Africa.
Now. a merger which safely harbored
the hard-pressed and hard-up empire
within tariff wall would enable it to
rise on a wave of economic good for
tune to new strength, power and rich
es, and the doubling and questioning
would give way to new confidence and
pride.
Markets Are Threatened.
Britain used to be the workshop of
the world. She thrived on a world trade.
But Germany. Japan and the United
States just before the war were already
pressing her hard In all her foreign
markets. That process has been enor-
mously accelerated from a dozen differ
ent directions in the postwar period.
She now finds herself ringed about by
competitors who are either Snatching
from her the world markets which her
pioneering forefathers found for her or
are themselves producing behind tariff
walls the finished goods they used to
buy from the island manufacturers.
Result-idle men and closed down
plants in England. The cotton trade
has lost $4,000, 900 in a year. The coal
and steel trades have lost more than
half the capital invested in them.
There Is no remedy for this state OF
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