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Entry type: Book Call Number: 1498 Barcode: 31290035225986
  • Author

    Hodson, H. V. (Henry Vincent)

  • Publication Date

    1948

  • Place of Publication

    London

  • Book-plate

    No

  • Edition

    First

  • Number of Pages

    186

  • Publication Info

    hardcover

Copy specific notes

Bookplate inserted; various highlights in pencil made to text including: [dedication page] “[To] the men and women of countries of different race from ours (coupled with the name of Rao Bahadur V. P. Menon) who know that nationalism is only the beginning of national greatness and that our nations can be greater, as well as safer and more prosperous, if they stand together than if they struggle alone.”; [p. 111 – chapter on “Empire Migration” (earmarked)] “Political or religious discontents have never played a large part in determining the larger movements of migration from the British Isles. Economic conditions which seemed less pleasant than those overseas have been the major expulsory motive. […] The stabilization and socialization of economic life in the Dominions have, of course, diminished this motive.”; [p. 112] “It is the young and restless, the still unstabilized and unsocialized citizens, who are the potential material for migration.”; [p. 116] “A New Towns plan ought surely to be an Empire-wide plan.”; [p. 117] “Fairness apart, can it be to the general advantage that relatively young and productive elements of the population, as emigrant families are wont to be, should quit their posts under a heavy load of national debt in order to put their shoulders where they are not so badly needed, leaving that heavy load to be borne by a shrinking number of workers?”; [p. 121] “The conclusion is obvious so long as the hypothesis remains true, that the Dominions take much less than their share, and Britain much more than hers, of the common burden of British Commonwealth defence and the military support of the United Nations […] A military weakened Britain without militarily strengthened Dominions would mean a weaker Commonwealth at a moment when no weakening can be afforded without the utmost peril […] The status of the British Commonwealth as a great Power among the greatest depends on the elements: first, the material and human resources of the Commonwealth as a whole, and its geographical location in and around the world’s oceans; secondly, the historical position of the United Kingdom as leader of the Commonwealth; and finally the possession of an engineering and chemical industry – the mainstay of modern military might – of the highest order.”; [p. 122] “A Commonwealth of five Canadas would be an important group of middle Powers, but not a great Power among the greatest, unless it has the apparatus for joint and concentrated leadership, and a manufacturing industry comparable in completeness with that of Britain today […] A transfer of, say, five million people from the United Kingdom to the Dominions over the next ten years […] would, in fact, be likely to increase the defensive power of the Dominions, including their manufacturing power as an element in defence, by more than it would diminish the Mother Country’s. The wider dispersal of industry and population would also be an advantage in passive defence against attack from the air. This argument, however, has often been exaggerated in popular discussion.”; [p. 123] “Nevertheless the strengthening of the Dominions’ population and industry, even at the expense of the Mother Country, would represent a certain insurance, to say the least, and if carried far enough would be a positive contribution to Commonwealth military security […] The difficulty is not that surplus food in the Dominions cannot be shipped to Britain, but that the Empire as a whole is not to-day producing enough to feed itself […] The Empire could become self-sufficient in food, with the Dominions’ populations as they are, if their industrial policies were amended to the benefit of the land as against the towns, and of high real incomes as against additional leisure […] Intra-Commonwealth migration would, furthermore. render far easier the immigration of non-British people, which is the only way of improving on the slow natural rate of increase of the Commonwealth’s total population; for the Dominions would be far readier to accept such immigrants in large numbers if they were at the same time absorbing British people on a proportionate scale.”; [p. 124] “A Commonwealth which had both a more even distribution of population between Britain and the Dominions, and a larger total population between Britain and the Dominions, and a larger total population through net foreign immigration, would undoubtedly be militarily stronger as well as socially better.”

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