EMPIRE UNITY.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 246, 17 October 1929, Page 7

EMPIRE UNITY.

INTANGIBLE BONDS. Labour Tackling Problems Of Development. PRIME MINISTER'S IDEALS. (Australian Press Assn.—United Service.) (Received 12 noon.) TORONTO, October 16. The development of Empire unity, the strengthening of those intangible bonds of affection and pride which bound the children of the Dominions to the hearthstones of the old Mother Country were problems before the Government of Britain, Mr. MacDonald said to-day, addressing the Canadian Club. Britain, Mr. Mac Donald said, had no desire to interfere in the affairs of Canada, though the Mother Country watched them with affection and careful interest. If he was to make any suggestion it would he that in economic affairs we should co-operate more closely. He proposed to go into no details on this point. His friend, Mr. J. H. Thomas, Lord Privy Seal, had made specific suggestions as to how Canada could help Britain. "Anything you can do along the line suggested by Mr. Thomas will be welcomed by the whole Government." Mr. MaeDonald rose to great heights when he turned to tlie moral responsibility of the Empire. "The nation which has no moral message is decadent," he said. "We must remember that the British Commonwealth of Nations must keep the flags flying, which mean moral issues." Fifteen hundred delegates of the American Federation of Labour Convestion, which is meeting here, earlier gave Mr. Mac Donald and Miss Ishbel MacDonald one of the greatest ovations accorded him since his arrival in America. Applause interrupted him when he rose to speak. Labour, said Mr. Mac Donald, stood for those things he had come to America to promote. Mr. Mac Donald continued: "I have been introduced in the name' of the great oflice I hold, but I want you to feel that, Prime Minister or not, I am still the old workman I was born. A workman is distinguished by his mentality and point of view. In Britain lam a party man. Here to-day I. do not represent a party, I represent a nation. On our side Labour is working out its policy by evolutionary means. The revolution we believe in is the revolution of the ballot box. You can make no permanent changes in the- constitution of nations unless you appeal to sound moral sense. • What the Next War Means. "Labour is the proper forum to appeal to in seeking world , peace. You have to pay the debts of war. In the fullness of time all classes have to share the sacrifice- in war, but,taken in the mass, Labour bears the burden. If there should be another war tre sacrifices and pains of labour will be greater than in the last. In the next war death will be dealt out not only on the battlefields, it will be dealt oiit from the bottom of the seas and from the height of the heavens. The civilian population will drop down in the streets and die from mysterious attacks of poison." Mr. Mac Donald was introduced by tlic president, Mr. William Green, who said: "He is among our true friends to-day. We knew him in the old days as chief of the Labour party, but we know him to-day as the spokesman of Britain." Miss Ishbel Mac Donald also spoke.