At the conclusion of Empire Trade, the commentator succinctly illustrates the way in which the government sought to present its Empire Trade policy to the British public. ‘The aim of the national government is to open up for British goods the vast markets within the Empire because expansion of Empire trade means more employment in our factories at home. We must go forward with this Empire policy’, the commentator concludes, ‘remembering that we are a great family linked together in a blood brotherhood of loyalty and service and that by helping our dominions, we are benefiting ourselves’. The film plays out with shots of London and of the Union Jack.

There are a number of points to note here. First, the film presents this issue of imperial trade largely from the perspective of home workers. With the continuing economic depression and with the Conservative Party emphasising, on film, the dangers of free trade for the British worker, Empire Trade instead highlights the jobs and opportunities provided for British workers at home and throughout the Empire through imperial trade. The commentator explains that India ‘takes more of our manufactured goods than any other part of the Empire and gives employment to as many as 130,000 British workers’, and, when referring to the Malay States, explains that ‘these colonies, by purchasing our goods, create regular employment in this country [Britain]’. Australia keeps ‘77,000 British workers regularly employed through buying British goods’, while Canada ‘gives employment to 67,000 Britons’. The film shares much in common with earlier imperial propaganda films, most notably EMB productions like One Family (1930), which illustrated by a tour of the Empire, the importance of the dominions and colonies in providing food for British homes. However, Empire Trade speaks directly to the British worker (and voter). It responds to fears about industrial unemployment in Britain and, as a political polemic, seeks to use the divisive issue of free trade to appeal to voters primarily through its mobile cinema circuit.

Secondly, the film transmits a message of imperial interdependency – ‘a great family… blood brotherhood of loyalty’ – and emphasises the existing British influences within the dominions. The commentator notes, for example, that the South African diamond and gold mines were ‘both developed by British engineers and worked with British machinery’, while Sydney Harbour Bridge was ‘built by a British firm, with British materials’. This message of imperial loyalty and interdependency also has a more defensive and militaristic undertone. For example, the commentator explains that the wheat supply in Britain would be used up within a month, if not for the imports from Canada. This, he asserts, shows ‘how vital to our protection is the unity of the Empire’. He further notes that the naval base of Singapore ‘keeps watch over the Malay States’, while Aden is ‘guarding the Suez Canal, our trade route to the East’.

Thirdly, the film presents London as the commercial and ideological heart of the Empire. ‘Here is London’, the commentator says, ‘a symbol of Britain’s commercial supremacy and her mastery of the high seas’. The images used are largely familiar – for example, the near-obligatory shot of a local climbing a coconut tree in Malaya – but the commentary serves to celebrate the Empire (‘Let’s take a look at this vast Empire of ours on which the sun never sets’), to highlight the benefits to the British worker (‘these colonies by purchasing British goods create regular employment in this country’) and to emphasise the ongoing role of the national government in promoting British industry (‘Under the guidance of our national government we have once more gained our rightful place as the greatest exporting nation’). The film presents trade with the colonies and dominions as a necessity – ‘we are not a self-supporting country’ – but there are notable omissions in the film. For example, in visiting the ‘most important parts of the Empire’, Empire Trade fails to mention either the African colonies or the West Indies.

The government’s imperial trade policy is most neatly encapsulated in a brief sequence featuring ‘our good friend New Zealand’. Here, the commentator outlines the policy of imperial preference advocated at the Ottawa conference, as he explains that New Zealand does not want to ‘harm’ the British farmer, ‘all she wants is preference over the foreigner’. This also highlights once more the way in which the government in 1934 sought to present imperial trade to the British public, not as competition to the British worker, but as a necessary and beneficial collaboration within the imperial family.

Tom Rice (September 2009)