to our effort that it was a matter of choosing the easiest of many easy ways of prosperity. The choice was governed rather by chance than by design. It was certainly not dictated by Imperial considerations in the sense of seeking to establish an Empire which would be a self-contained economic unit, and in which one part would be willing to consider as of primary importance the vital interest of another part. For example, the sugar industry, in which we held a complete supremacy during the time of the Napoleonic wars, was allowed to drift almost entirely out of our hands. The interest of the British manufacturers seemed to call for cheap sugar. To serve that interest the canefields of the West Indies were allowed to fall back into jungle to a great extent, and the new sugar lands that we had acquired in Northern Australia and the Pacific were left almost undeveloped. If during the nineteenth century the British Empire, as an Empire, had set itself to maintain an Imperial balance in the matter of the sugar industry, it is possible that there would not have been so great a concentration of manufacturers of confectionery and the like in the Home Country, but there would have been a greater prosperity for the West Indies, for Northern Australia, and for the Pacific settlements under our flag.

To give another example of an unbalanced economic development, we built up in Lancashire a marvellous organisation for manufacturing cotton without making any adequate provision for the supply of its raw material within our Empire. It was not that we lacked cotton-growing lands, but that there was no settled Imperial economic policy which surveyed the Empire as a whole, and sought to establish a balance between manufacture and supply of raw material.

An example, on the other hand, of a really well-balanced Imperial development of industry was that of wool textiles. There both the manufacture and the growth of wool were developed side by side within the Empire. Whilst Yorkshire perfected machinery for the production of the finest wool textiles, the scanty wool resources of the British Isles were supplemented by the development of the magnificent sheep runs of Australia, of New Zealand and of South Africa. Thus this truly Imperial industry enriches to-day almost every part of the Empire.

I do not propose in an article which is intended to deal with general considerations only to trouble the reader too much with statistics, but it will be of advantage to look in some detail at the facts of the development of the two typical British textile industries, wool and cotton, to illustrate the comparative advantages of one which has developed on the lines of self-contained

Imperial industry, and the other which has concentrated on manufacture only, content to draw its raw material from foreign sources. The following figures cover nine years:

(Cotton raw material imports from Egypt have been counted as foreign in 1913-1914, as Imperial from 1915 to 1921, in the above figures.)

It will be seen that, whilst the cotton industry in a pre-war year drew only 3 per cent. of its raw material from the Empire, the wool industry drew about 75 per cent. The war taught the necessity of Empire cotton, and in the post-war year 1921 the Empire contributed about one-third of the raw material supply. There is no doubt at all that the Empire could, if called upon, contribute the whole of the raw materials for the Lancashire mills (and this, too, though we must count Egypt as no longer part of the Empire.) Cotton-growing began in Australia as far back as 1860, and when the American civil war interfered with the supplies from our cousins across the Atlantic, Australian

cotton-growing promised well, the area under this crop rising to 14,000 acres in 1870. But cotton cultivation was allowed to die down. It has lately been revived, and in 1922 Australia had over 7,000 acres under crop, and the area is increasing each year as the product finds a favourable market in this country. In Africa and elsewhere there are other potential cotton areas.

The Empire cotton-growing movement which Lancashire is taking up with such great enthusiasm suggests that the Mother Country is inclined now to believe that there were elements of danger in the old unbalanced policy, and that the soundest path for the future will be to follow a plan making the Empire as far as possible a self-contained economic unit. If that is so, are the Dominions of the same mind as they were at the beginning of the century, and is the British Empire throughout ready to adopt a policy of economic unity? The Economic Conference this year and the British Empire Exhibition in 1924 will help to give an answer to that question.

The Economic Conference will bring together the statesmen of our race (and those also of the races which are associated with us under our flag) to discuss the broad principles of economic policy for the Empire. It will be the part of the British Empire Exhibition, following closely upon the Economic Conference, to illustrate practically the principles which will have been discussed there. In a popular form, yet not in any sketchy manner, there will be shown all that the Empire is doing at the present time, and much that it can hope to do in the future. Those industries which are well organised imperially, that is to say, those in which the product is Imperial from the first stages to the last, will show their wares, and also those industries in which the Empire has taken the leading part in some stage, but not all stages, of production and manufacture. The Exhibition will be thus a debate, illustrated with products and processes, as to whether we can convert industries which are partially Imperial into industries which will be wholly Imperial.

There will then still remain the question whether it will pay, and that question will be answered, presumably, after weighing the balance between the interests of the raw material producer, who is chiefly a citizen of the Empire overseas, and the manufacturing worker, who is chiefly a citizen in the Home Country; but also, I trust, with due regard for the interests of the Empire as a whole, and with a thought for security, and with a recollection that the children of our manufacturing workers have in very many cases the best hope of prosperity in becoming producers of raw material within the family circle of the Empire.

TRAVERS CLarke.

INTERNATIONAL FRIENDSHIP AND THE WORLD ALLIANCE

THE Conflict between Christianity and paganism was not solved when Charlemagne ordered that his soldiers should be baptised by regiments. It is not solved at the present day. Every avenue which gives promise of a successful solution should be fully explored from differing standpoints, but we counsel patience to those who expect immediate success. It was at the commencement of the Reformation period that the great humanist, Erasmus, expressed his horror' at the tacitly setting Christianity aside as a thing which would not work as a rule of political and social life.' No great change has occurred in this respect since the date at which Erasmus expressed the above opinion. In some directions the difficulty of applying Christianity as a rule of political and social life has increased, as, for instance, in the settling of international claims which arise in the adjustment of the relations between nations of separate race and independent sovereignty. It is not only that the principles of Christian ethics are tacitly set aside, but there is the open avowal that they are not to be regarded as applicable to the settlement of international disputes, and that the standard of conduct which Christianity has imposed as a duty in the intercourse of individuals is not a safe guide in the intercourse between nations. I regard it as one of the main purposes for which the World Alliance to promote international friendship through the Churches has been instituted, to insist that Christianity can only accept one standard of moral conduct, and that in this respect no compromise is possible.

It must not be forgotten that it is impossible under any system of national exclusiveness to avoid the difficulties which attach to international intercourse unless there is a radical change in the whole structure of modern civilisation. Nations cannot be independent of one another, either in the realm of literature, science, and art, or in the organisation and building up of their industrial development. It is an economic commonplace that the necessity for an interchange between manufactured articles and food, or raw material, makes the world largely an economic

unit, a fact which cannot be disregarded without the certainty of industrial dislocation and the accompanying risks of poverty and unemployment. Unfortunately, it is not an uncommon mistake to regard the recognition of international obligation based on Christian principle as inconsistent with a full appreciation of the high motives inspired by a sense of national patriotism and loyalty. The truth is that a common moral standard, impartially applied, tends to raise to a higher level both the sense of duty as between the individuals of which a nation is constituted and the sense of duty as between the nations which constitute the world family. It has been said that God created humanity, and that man is responsible for the separation of mankind into citizens of various nations; but any apparent discord is at once harmonised by the adoption of the same standard of obligation under all conditions, whether between individuals or nations, irrespective of racial differences or of territorial frontiers.

The credit of starting the movement to promote international friendship through the Churches is mainly due to the late Mr. Allen Baker, with whom co-operated the Dean of Worcester, Sir Willoughby Dickenson, and the late Right Hon. J. E. Ellis. I had the privilege to know Mr. Allen Baker in the House of Commons, and on one occasion crossed with him, in the same ship, to Canada. His modesty gave an appearance of diffidence, but there never was a man more sincere and single-minded in devotion to what he believed to be true and just. The World Alliance was formally constituted at a conference held in Constance on August 2, 1914, an inauspicious date for inaugurating an association designed to promote international friendship. The fact that such a conference was held at this date is an eloquent testimony to the sincerity of the promoters. The objects which the promoters had in mind included the recognition that the work of conciliation, and the promotion of amity between the peoples and Governments of the world, was an essentially Christian task, in which all sections of the Church of Christ were equally concerned, and that the Churches in all lands should use their influence to bring about good and friendly relations between the nations, so that along the path of peaceful civilisation they might reach that universal goodwill which Christianity has taught mankind to aspire after. I do not know who was responsible for these words. They will remind Churchmen of the prayer in the Communion Service which asks God to inspire continually the universal Church with the spirit of truth, unity and concord, and to grant that all they that do confess His holy name may agree in the truth of His holy word, and live in unity and godly love. Unfortunately, experience has proved that