EMPIRE UNITY

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21886, 12 September 1936, Page 15

EMPIRE UNITY

STRENGTHENING IN FACE

OF CRISIS NEED FOR DOMINIONS TO SHOULDER BURDEN ¥ (nsOil OL’B own cobbzsfoxdzst.) LONDON, August 5. A closer linking of the British Empire as a direct result of the general world situation in recent years is seen by Mr C. M. Mclnnes (Reader in Imperial History at the University at Bristol). Speaking at a meeting of the Royal Empire Society Summer School at Bristol this week, he -said that there was a profound significance for the Empire in the repeated flaunting and defiance of the League of Nations. Political liberty and parliamentary institutions were fighting a rearguard action throughout the world. Small nations were even struggling for a right to exist. “Already there is talk of redistribution of the Empire,” declared Mr Mclnnes. “But if in a moment of weakness and unwisdom we agreed to parcel out our tropical possessions what reason is there for believing that this process would stop there? In spite of their great areas, the Dominions are in terms of military, naval, and air power small states, and quite clearly, with the Empire weak or divided,.what has happened to Manchuria and to Abyssinia might happen to them. Look beyond the frontiers of the Empire at this moment v and almost everywhere you will find uncertainty, hysteria, or chaos, for ‘the dykes are down, the floods are out, and the file affords no precedent.’ It is sober truth to say that in this year 1936 the British Empire is the greatest remaining bulwark between all that we mean when we speak of civilisation and barbarism. Rights and Obligations “If we are to endure as an. empire we must be powerful and united, and the Dominions must now accept the full burdens as well as the privilege of their nationhood. They must cease to expound the gospel of their rights and remember their obligations. Obsessed by the bogey of colonial inferiority they have so far opposed the creation of arty imperial secretariat in London which would function between Imperial conferences, but they have gladly borne the costs of a similar institution in Geneva. Surely what is sauce for the League of Nations* goose is sauce for the Imperial gander.

“As a Canadian I feel that we have had rather too much of this parochialism, and that the present world situation is far too seridus for any of us to indulge in the luxury of being petty. Imperial unity should be based on something more than concern for reciprocal trade and mutual defence. There are those intangible but powerful ties that arise from a common cultural - inheritance, traditions of political liberty, reverence for the Crown, and affectiori for the person of the King. These should be strengthened and still other positive links must be forged. “Somehow the Dominions must be made to feel their partnership with the Mother Country in all her great Imperial responsibilities. If the view prevails that the colonies and protectorates must remain the sole concern of the Mother Country, if the Dominions continue as at present to know nothing about that great task of trusteeship and to be little more than friendly allies of Britain, then the future of the Empire is precarious. I should like to see an enormous expansion in the system of recruiting young men from the Dominions for the colonial and other services. That is but one of many ways in which Imperial citizenship may be made a positive, living fact. “We must not allow the greatest empire in history to go down in ruin because we fail to master the machinery of its government or because we find that price of co-opera-tion too high and the inroads upon national prestige which it Hmrwanrfg, too great. We must show the world that we are strong and united, ready if need be to repay our' would-be assassins in kind and in greater measure. If we do maintain our unity and our strength I believe that the British Empire by her example of freedom, her respect for law, her readiness for friendship with all nations, will not only preserve herself from destruction, but will lead the world back from the ways of madness into the paths of peace.”