We publish this week an interesting article by Sir Alfred
Mond recommending that the British Empire should be turned into a Free Trade area with a tariff barrier against the rest of the world. If anything came of the proposal to create an economic United States of Europe, with Free Trade within its borders but hedged round by a Customs barrier, there might then be three Zollvereins in the world—America, Europe, and the British Empire. The objection to Sir Alfred Mond's scheme, we think, is that it would mean a quite unnecessary declaration of economic war. Great Britain would be regarded as an enemy in Europe. As we want all the trade we can get wherever we can get it, it is surely preferable that economic frontiers should be left vague where it is not quite inevitable that they should be sharply drawn. Again, it is not only other people's trade we want. We also want their money. Foreign money employing British labour, here or else- where in the Empire, is not at all a had arrangement.
• * *
Previous page
