GREAT BRITAIN: Everyman First!

“Canada First! In approaching the economic problems of our Empire, I stand four-square behind that policy! If this Conference is to meet these problems and to provide an effective solution, it seems to me that my attitude toward my own country will be the attitude of you all toward yours.”

In other words: Newfoundland First! Australia First! New Zealand First! South Africa First! Great Britain First! India First! The Irish Free State First!

The wealthy, forthright statesman who startled the Imperial Conference in London last week by crying “Canada First!”, adding that he expected his fellow Prime Ministers to cry their countries likewise, was of course His Majesty’s Prime Minister in the Dominion of Canada, the Rt. Hon. Richard Bedford Bennett, bachelor.

Such talk has been heard at Imperial Conferences before. Years ago English editors used to call it “breezy,” “refreshing” or even “delightful”—but the last two adjectives have completely though gradually worn out.

What has neverbeen heard before was the “breezy” backtalk which the Mother Country gave her grown-up brood of Dominions last week, as though she were beginning at last to think of herself as only a country too. Back-talker: the Secretary of State for the Dominions, the Rt. Hon. James Henry Thomas. At an Imperial Conference luncheon he said breezily:

“Every dominion delegate has said that his first interest was his ‘own people.’ They say, ‘We first and the Empire second.’ In sporting terms they hope the rest will be among the also rans. Well, that’s our position too! I say on behalf of the British Government that our first thought must be for our own people!”

Dominion Demands. There was much more in the Empire hen house last week than angry clucking. Abruptly in a single day all the Dominions, led by Canada, asked Great Britain to scrap her traditional, her immemorial policy of Free Trade.

The Dominions explained that they were not asking Great Britain to adopt the double scheme of abolishing tariff barriers within the Empire and building a tariff wall around it, as has been sensationally urged for more than a year by Baron Beaverbrook and Viscount Rothermere in the name of “Empire Free Trade” (TIME, Dec. 2 et seq.).

The Dominions asked that the Mother Country accept the last half only of this scheme: the wall around the Empire. Within this high wall the Dominions wish to maintain their own low walls, protecting their “infant” manufacturing industries from the competition of Englishmen, Scotchmen, Welshmen. If Great Britain would be willing to make the Empire wall quite high, the Dominions said in effect, then they would be willing to make their little walls quite low. Point: by this arrangement the Mother Country would buy much more in the way of raw materials from her Dominions than at present (because Argentine, U. S. and Russian offerings would be shut out by the Empire wall), and she would sell more of her manufactured products than at present to the Dominions (because they are willing to lower their present tariffs somewhat in her favor).

True, she might get into trouble with the Argentine, U. S., Russia, etc.—but this possibility the Dominions studiously ignored.

Spokesman Bennett. The definitive speech by Canada’s Bennett was echoed by all other Dominion prime ministers. His time: 15 min. flat. Excerpts: “The primary concern of Canada today is profit ably to sell its wheat. We believe we will be reaching toward a solution of that problem if we establish a better market in Great Britain. This market we want, and for it we are willing to pay by giving in the Canadian market the preference to British goods. You may, each in your way, apply what tests you choose to determine the value of reciprocal preferences to your own country. I am confident that your conclusions will coincide with ours.

“So I propose that we of the British Empire, in our joint and several interests, do subscribe to the principle of empire preference, that we take without delay the steps necessary to put it into effective operation.

“First, we must approve or reject the principle. I put the question definitely; definitely it should be answered. . . . We of the Empire States have within our own control the means to advance the interests of each one of us by developing a plan for economic co-operation based on the principle of Empire preference. . . . I cannot but believe that out of our deliberations will come an enduring scheme of co operation, based, if you will, upon self-interest but destined to carry the Empire through all parts into an era of commercial supremacy such as it has not heretofore known!”

“Surprising Unanimity.” The English, Scotch and Welsh leaders of Great Britain (i. e. English Conservative Stanley Baldwin, Scotch Laborite James Ramsay MacDonald, Welsh Liberal David Lloyd George) were fairly staggered last week by what the Dominions proposed.

Mr. Baldwin recovered first. He saw that this was his golden opportunity to draw together the various factions of the Conservative Party, sundered by dispute over the Beaverbrook-Rothermere and other tariff schemes. It could now be said that because of the Dominions’ “surprising unanimity,” no Empire tariff policy other than the one they demand is “practical politics” today. Straightway Mr. Baldwin announced: “I say now, with a full sense of responsibility, that whatever the Socialist [i. e. Labor] Government may do, the Conservative party accepts the principle put forward with such weight and unanimity. Furthermore, the Conservative party guided by the views expressed at this Conference, will formulate its own proposals for carrying that principle into effect and will submit them to the people at the next election for their final definite assent.”

MacDonald “Amazed.” What English Baldwin could do, Scotch MacDonald could not do. The Labor Cabinet of Great Britain could not say “Yes” to the Dominions last week. Nor could “No” easily be said. The Labor Party is split not between several tariff policies but upon the fundamental issue of whether tariffs are ever right or practical at all. THEY ARE NOT in the opinion of Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Snowden, the Prime Minister’s most potent friend and severest critic in the Cabinet. Result: the Dominion proposals tend to widen the Labor split, close the Conservative cracks. With a general election now expected shortly in Great Britain, the feelings of Scot Mac-Donald last week could only be anguish or anger. Manifestoed he:

“I am perfectly amazed at Mr. Baldwin’s manifesto. It throws the Imperial Conference right into the arena of partisan controversy. . . . Mr. Baldwin does not know what is going on* nor does he know, indeed, in precise business terms what is involved in the declarations at the Imperial Conference which he has adopted and has informed the country he has made into his own program.

“All I can say is that the Conservative party has once more changed the fly with which it is fishing for votes and also that when the new fly is examined it will be even worse as bait than some of the previous ones.”

Up Steps Snowden. At heart all British Laborites are free traders, because they are all Socialists. Scot MacDonald’s wavering toward an Empire tariff wall in recent weeks (TIME, Sept. 15) has merely reflected the fear of many Laborites that this new panacea will prove an unbeatable vote getter. But fear is not in pallid, crippled Philip Snowden. With the courage of an epileptic or a madman (though he is neither) he defied the Great Powers at The Hague Conference and won (TIME, Aug. 19, 1929 et seq.). Last week he forced the Prime Minister to let him at the Imperial Conference. A speech was announced in which Mr. Snowden was scheduled to tear what the Dominions proposed to tatters. If courage could win for Free Trade the battle was already won—but ballots will decide.

Imperial Problems tackled by the Constitutional Committee of the Imperial Conference, sitting last week under Lord Chancellor Sankey, include:

Nationality. Since the separate Governments of Canada, Great Britain and South Africa already issue three separate kinds of passport, are their citizens of separate “nationalities” or not? The committee was said to be evolving a new theory of “double nationality,” permitting a Canadian to cry: “My countries, Canada and the Empire! May they always be right, but my countries, right or wrong!”

Empire Tribunal. Various dominions have long since demanded an “Empire Tribunal” before which a dispute involving Great Britain and South Africa, for example, could be settled, as nations out-side the Empire apply to The Hague tribunal.

The Irish Free State, impatient, has passed a law barring any Irishman from exercising his right to appeal from a decision of the Irish Free State Supreme Court to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London—which is in fact the Empire Supreme Court. Last week the Constitutional Committee of the Imperial Conference, far from frowning on Ireland’s action, seemed disposed to try and escape from the necessity of constituting an “Empire Tribunal” by pointing out to other dominions that they could do what the Free State has done.

*Meetings of the Imperial Conference have been closed to the public and press.