The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. TUESDAY. JUNE 9, 1925. DISCOVERING THE EMPIRE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 134, 9 June 1925, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

TUESDAY. JUNE 9, 1925. DISCOVERING THE EMPIRE.

For the cause that lacks ajsistanve. For the uyrong that needs resiltanoe. For the future in the distant-*, And the good that we can do.

The Labour party in Britain Is discovering the Empire. Its executive will move at the annual conference in September a motion containing a "Labour policy for the British Commonwealth of Nations." This urges closer personal contact between Governments of the Empire; a survey of natural resources with the view to using them "for the benefit of the peoples of the Empire"; a survey of land resources so that population may be redistributed and a larger proportion of the food and raw material needed by the Empire may be grown within its borders; and the purchase by the British Government of food grown in the Dominions. It is an immense programme, which combines Socialism with Empire development, and ill the sweep of its theory is typical of a party whose ideas are apt to run far ahead of practical possibilities. The main point, however, is that this motion is a sign that in the party iutcrest in the Empire is growing, and that the party is considering a more or less definite constructive policy of political and economic development. It is not fair to censure the Labour party heavily for its neglect of Imperial questions. It has always been weak in its grasp of these and foreign affairs, and has allowed itself to be influenced by ill-informed or prejudiced advisers. This, however, has been chiefly due to its preoccupation with domestic affairs. The party rests mainly on trade union support, and the unions have been fully occupied in improving their industrial position and consolidating their gains. Also, lack of education has prevented many wage-earners from understanding problems of the Empire and the foreign world, and poverty has been an enemy of enlightenment and appreciation. The average Conservative seems never to have realised that there is something incongruous and ironical in asking a half-starved slum-dweller in London or Glasgow to become enthusiastic over the glories of the oversea Empire. Neither physically nor intellectually is he fit to understand or appreciate. Force of circumstances, however, has led Labour to a deeper study of the Empire. Labour has become the second strongest party in the nation; it has provided one Government and it may be called upon to provide another. Growth of responsibility lias thruet the Empire upon its notice. The Empire is there, and it cannot be ignored. It no longer appears as a shadowy subject of Conservative oratory, but as a real, living possession, immense in size, bristling with problems, and infinite in its possibiltes. It cannot be waved aside. Labour, in Opposition or in office, must share in the responsibility for its government. The sense of responsibility, however, is not the only sense touched. The imagination is warmed by the contemplation of the Empire and the opportunities it offers to the race that has founded it.

In the Labour party there is coneiderablc division of opinion about the Empire, as there is on other subjects. Mr. J. H. Thomas, for example, and some members of the Independent Labour party, arc poles apart in their attitude towards Imperial questions. These I.L.P. men would give India "selfdetermination" to-morrow without a qualm. Mr. Thomas would think such a step a cowardly betrayal of trust. Outside the Labour party the Communists are avowedly working for the destruction of ir.c Empire. Those members of the Labour party, therefore, who are trying to frame a constructive policy of unity and development are protecting the Empire against the folly of the doctrinaire and the wickedness of the enemies of democracy and civilisation. The same duty presents itself to the Labour party in New Zealand. It has many supporters who value their Imperial citizenship and are interested in Empire development. It has others who are indifferent, towards such questions or are hostile to the very eoncep-

tion of the Empire. Docs it not support. more or less, a journal that lias urged upon unionists the duty nf destroying the Empire?