2 AUGUST 1930, Page 16

THE OVERSEAS TRADE DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Stn,—In your admirable editorial on The British Empire, in your issue of July 26th, I notice that while you refer to Sir Robert Hadfield's scheme for an Empire Development Board you say nothing of the Overseas Trade Development Council which, although its members are at present all from these islands, is already working on the exact lines that I conceive you recommend when you speak of an Imperial Economic Secretariat. It is so self-effacing that your omission is not surprising. But though it only came into being this spring, it has already been responsible for arranging three trade missions—one to South America, one to South Africa and the third to China and the Far East. Incidentally, the Master Cutler is in the mission to South America—probably the first time the holder of this office has been out of England in the interests of British trade since Master Cutlers were invented.

The O.T.D.C. consists of a number of prominent business men under the chairmanship of Mr. Gillett, the Parliamentary Secretary of the Department of Overseas Trade. In addition to the regular members of the Council, there is a panel of other business men acting in an advisory capacity. The secretarial staff is provided by officers of the Department of Overseas Trade. Thus, not only is the Council "a voluntary organisa- tion detached from polities or the bureaucracy," as you recommend, but in a degree it is able to direct the operations of the latter (though anything less " bureaucratic " than the D.O.T. it would be difficult to imagine) into the paths most useful to the business community.

The methods of the O.T.D.C., in so far as they are known to one who like myself has no connexion with this body, consist not only in arranging for trade missions to visit " key " points, but in analysing the trade figures for the different markets of the world, seeing where British trade has lost ground and conferring with those concerned with a view to organizing a plan of campaign to put British trade back where it ought to be—at the top. This would seem to necessitate reorganiza- ation of sales methods, of advertising, of commercial inform- ation, a fuller study of prospective customers' needs, and checking up on the thousand and one little details which in the palmier pre-War days British business men were some- times inclined to scoff at.

At present the O.T.D.C. only operates on behalf of these islands. Obviously its scope ought to be extended so that not only the advisory panels, but the Council itself include representatives of the Dominions and Colonies. Equally obviously, however, the initiative for such an extension cannot very well come from the Government of this country, but from the delegates to the Imperial Economic Conference. If the enlarged Council ever conies into being, it would need an annual grant like that given to the Empire Marketing Board to enable it to stimulate inter-imperial as well as inter-national trade in the way most calculated (in your own happy phrase) " to bring the unlimited demand of us all into due relation with the bounteous products of nature and of industry with which (the) Empire is blessed."—I am, Sir, &c., 109 Lonsdale Road, S.W.13. A. G. LIAS