The Right Sort of Change?-4

IS THERE A COMMONWEALTH?

By JOHN RiFFEN, MP

DOES any major political party in Britain wish to inherit the mantle of Empire some- time worn by Joseph Chamberlain and Lord Beaverbrook?

Labour has an undoubted enthusiasm for the Commonwealth. It dates from the granting of independence to India by the Attlee Govern- ment in 1947. The Conservatives, on the other hand, have shown growing disenchantment with any old-style tariff reform ambition for imperial .trade. The Common Market negotiations have finally shown that the contemporary Tory Party does not regard imperial preference and the Ottawa Agreement as a Clause Four to be en- shrined in party Commonwealth policy. Labour, on the other hand, although opposing the Ottawa Agreement in 1932, now strongly reacts against any European commitment that would seriously prejudice that settlement.

It seems clear that any attempt to define and develop closer-knit political and economic ties Within the Commonwealth will provoke a sharp Political cleavage in Britain. There is little evi- dence to suggest the main stream of Conserva- tive Party thinking is at all sympathetic to the Powerful voices within the Labour Party—includ- ing its leader's—who argue that the Common- wealth is a story of recent missed economic Opportunities. On the contrary, Tories continue to question seriously whether or not any special overall Commonwealth relations do or can exist.

The Commonwealth has, no general political Characteristics. The withdrawal of South Africa from the Commonwealth has not Produced any agreed standards of domestic political conduct, and neither is it likely to. The foreign policies of individual Commonwealth countries may or may not coincide. Relations between India and Burma (which left the Commonwealth) are not significantly cooler than relations between India and her Commonwealth neighbours, Pakistan and Ceylon. It might be argued that whilst there was no particular political sympathy between all Commonwealth powers, none the less individual States retained a particular sympathy with Britain, whose policies had transformed Empire into Commonwealth. This is. not apparent. Even the old Deminions have special defence rela- tions with the United States.

Britain may feel emotional links, particularly With the old Dominions, and, indeed, may be militarily allied (in NATO or SEATO) to indi- vidual Commonwealth countries. Such links em- phasise the diversity of the Commonwealth, and repel the prospects of a closer overall political grouping.

It might, then, be argued that the political Potential and virtue of the Commonwealth do not lie in any grand political design, but in the demonstration of racial understanding. This is noble stuff, but just what are the chances of demonstrating racial tolerance? The domestic Politics of many Commonwealth and colonial territories are bedevilled by racial politics: for example, Fiji, Mauritius, British Guiana and Ceylon. The division between India and Pakistan Was an early confession that the Commonwealth Could not perpetuate a unity that had been main- tained by Empire.

Any realistic appraisal of the future of the

Next week Henry Fairlie will write the concluding Irticic in this series.

Commonwealth cannot rest on supposed unique achievements in the field of racial co-operation. This is not to disparage the many examples of racial co-operation in the Commonwealth (and Malaysia is surely the most hopeful), but to ob- serve there is nothing unique about race relations within the Commonwealth. The trouble is that we may delude ourselves there is.

However, it is in the field of trade and eco- nomic development that the virtues of renewed Commonwealth dedication are likely to be pressed. What is the evidence that Common- wealth countries have the desire, or Britain the capacity, to give a special significance to Com- monwealth trade?

Britain's trade with the Commonwealth is con- siderable, but it is also true that the Common- wealth share of British trade is declining. This is not the occasion to rehearse again the many economic arguments that raged before and during the British application to join the Six. We should note, however, that in every case Commonwealth countries are diversifying their trade, and such a trend is likely to continue. Trade follows aid and investment, and this alone would account for the increasing trade between Germany and America and Commonwealth countries. The emergence of Japan as a major industrialised power with rapidly rising standards of consumption offers export opportunities to Australasia that Britain should not grudge and cannot equal. Indeed, we should do well to examine the prospects for Commonwealth ex- ports to Britain, particularly of temperate food- stuffs and cotton textiles. Britain already imports a larger share of domestic consumption of tex- tiles from low-cost Asian countries than does any other industrial country. We call for others (and particularly the EEC) to follow our ex- ample. But if we abandon exhortation and seek vigorous Commonwealth trade initiatives, should we then deliberately accelerate the decline of the British textile industry in order to widen the market for Asian cloth? Do we so devise our home agricultural policy to provide an enlarged market for Commonwealth suppliers of temper- ate foodstuffs, and in particular do we deliber- ately seek to replace domestic beet production of sugar with cane sugar imports from the Carib- bean and Africa? It is not enough to have the blessing of Sir Roy Harrod for such policies. There must be a political will to enforce them.

There is scant evidence that such a will exists, even—and especially—within the Labour Party. Is there a meaningful interpretation of the Wil- sonian policy of import saving and import sub-

stitution that does not affect Commonwealth trade? Temperate foodstuffs accounted for about 25 per cent of total UK imports in 1963 and a planned expansion of home agriculture would be the most speedy method of significantly saving imports. A policy of deliberately encouraging petro-chemical derivatives could provide substi- tutes for some textile fibres and base metals. It really is a nonsense to suppose that such policies could but challenge the present British market offered to Commonwealth trade in these com- modities.

There is little evidence to indicate that British business has turned its back on Commonwealth investment. The Overseas Direct Investment In- quiry for 1962, published by the Board of Trade in November last year,* suggests that the Com- monwealth (taken to include Canada, but ex- clude South Africa) accounted for about half of direct private investment (excluding oil and insurance). The Commonwealth in 1962 took a greater share of overseas private investment than it did of total UK exports.

Attempts to enlarge direct private investment in the Commonwealth have already excited the planning and discriminatory instincts of the left. If the Commonwealth is preferred to Europe, Mr. Wilson is at pains to let us know that even within the Commonwealth private British in- vestors are showing poor sense of priority. 'What we expect in the way of investment in the Com- monwealth,' he has recently told us, 'should be more purposefully channelled than it is today.'t The prospect is intriguing. Does a renewed Commonwealth drive mean more and consider- able discrimination to drive British capital to markets which are not intrinsically the most attractive?

The limitations of special Commonwealth links are most likely to be exposed in the ability and willingness of Britain to provide direct government aid. The mere size of the problem rules out any chance of Britain becoming, in any sense, a preferred or exclusive partner in providing government aid to the Commonwealth. Britain's share of the capital-aid pledges given to India and Pakistan by the 'Aid India Club' of Western Powers for 1961-64 was 10 per cent --less than a quarter of the US contribution.

The capital demands of the Commonwealth, both in private investment and in government aid, call upon the resources of all Western coun- tries. Many of the demands for investment come from new Commonwealth countries whose com- mercial and political behaviour almost risks them out of the market. We should be very hesitant about encouraging special investriient relationship with such territories. It is not a matter for regret--and certainly not a matter for blackmail—if these countries take some of their Militant and dubious investment demands to the Soviet bloc.

The Commonwealth is not, nor is it likely to be, a trading entity. Many Commonwealth countries are not interested in a free or freer trade relationship with Britain or anyone else. This may be a passing phase, but it is unlikely to have passed during the next Parliament.

The above arguments should not be read as a sour and cynical commentary on the Common- wealth. The argument only notes that the diver- sity of the Commonwealth, both economically and politically, has reached a stage where it would be futile and harmful to attempt to restore some economic or political unity. At the same time, we must realise that even those Common- wealth countries closest to us by culture (such * Board of Trade Journal. November 15, 1963. t Hansard, February 6, 1964, col. 1383/4. as. Canada and Australasia) are unlikely to wish to join the kind of trade grouping Britain en- visages in EFTA. To acknowledge this is not to be disloyal to the Commonwealth, only to the fiction of it that some try so fiercely to preserve. The danger is that we shall spend much time and endure a good deal of frustration in seeking

tme elusive Commonwealth unity in the next Parliament. The prospect of this becomes more Plausible now it is clear that Gaullism is likely to persist in the Common Market for the next few years. At least partial failure of the Kennedy Trade Round now seems certain. Confronted by the emergence of a protectionist 'Six,' the tempta- tion to seek an illusory Commonwealth trade alternative could prove overwhelming. The Labour Party already seems to have succumbed. Within the Labour Party are now nurtured the fondest illusions both of the Commonwealth desire for British, initiatives and of Britain's capacity to foster special Commonwealth rela- tionships. It is these illusions and not the Com- monwealth that are both gigantic and farcical.