OUR EMPIRE HOME

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19285, 14 April 1928, Page 16

OUR EMPIRE HOME

MR AMERY'S IMPRESSIONS. POWER OF THE HOME MARKET. (roou ou* OWI COBSSSTO*®** 7 ') LONDON., March 6. Mr Amery has not yet completed his round of entertainments, which are meant to be a welcome home after his Empire tour. Both he and Mrs Amery were the guests of the Overseas League at luncheon last Friday. Sir Ernest Birch presided. The chairman, in proposing the toast of ''Our Guests," said that nothing could be learned about the Dominions and Colonies unless they were personally inspected. It was the Prince or Wales who said that he thought it was the duty of every person who had large administrative work to do in connexion with the Empire to visit the Dominions and the Coltmies. He was glad that since then several visits had been paid, lhere was no better way of understanding one another. The two great problems to study were preferential trade and) migration, and they could be assured that 110 one understood these problems now better than Mr Amery, who had visited the Dominions. Mr Amery said that it was at a luncheon of tho Overseas League a tew weeks after he had taken office that he first gave expression to the idea that under modern conditions, it was part ot the dutv of anv Secretary of State tor Dominion Affairs, not merely to wait to meet Ministers of the Dominions here at Imperial Conferences, but to make himself personally, acquainted with the men and conditions oversea. He had had an opportunity of doing that, and he could only say that from the point of view of what he had gamed, it had been worth while. During his tour he had! been rather like ah election candidate. He had been making so many speeches that he felt that he never wanted to make another speech. But there was a difference between him and the election candidate. The latter never had time to get a proper meal. During his travel round the Dominions his difficulty was to find an hour during the day when he was not expected! to. have a meat. There were, in addition to the main meals, ten o'clock tea, 12 o'clock tea, three o'clock tea, 11 o'clock tea. If his eloquence arcund the world was equal to tho hospitality that was meant to stimulate it, then it must have been something wonderful.

Result, of Preference. On this ocasion Mi' Amery felt he was justified at least in varying the style of his speech. Instead of dwelling too much on the political and economic aspects of the Empire, lie gave an interesting description of some of the physical features of the lpids he had visited. In Rhodesia, he saw "prosperous . young cities .and a kieen, virile people. Wo gave preference in duties to Empire tobacco over foreign tobacco. It was only when they saw a young nation growing up, largely as a consequence of their action, that they began to realise , what a creative power we possessed in this market of ours and what a difference the use of that power might make to the British Empire. South Africa was never without interest and never without the inspiration of great names. It had .a wonderful past, and was growing every year in material wealth. It was growing above" all in its agriculture. He was reminded of that great man, Lord Milner, who, afterthe ruinous devastation of the South African War, gave himself the task not only of restoring, hut of creating afresh a new agricultural life for South Africa. He (Mr Amery) found South Africa still full of the echoes, the aftermath of old quarrels, with a new quarrel impending, apparently for no reason.in particular, but rather on the momentum, of party politics which had dragged a. certain issue to, the fore. It was with, a feeling of immense satisfaction that he hard that that issue, «tlio flag question, was settled by ft fair compromise.

Pushing Back the Desert. In Australia they saw the process of pushing back, by cultivation, the Australian desert. Land, which fifteen \cars ago was uncultivated,. was now a settled country. There were homes which: perhaps were rough, and country which perhaps' brought little to the owners, hut they would be prosperous homes -for their children. The deisert was being' pushed back until it- would be ho longer discernible. No one, said Mr Amery, could realise the developments seen during the tour merely by. reading statistics. Those developments could be realised only when they saw them and met those engaged in;.the work,. and appreciated the splendid spirit of our .settlers, men and. women, all over, the Empire, who were losing . none of their love of: the Old Country, and yet were throwing' themselves heart and soul into the patriotism! of a new country. Amid all the different . conditions, and dreams of •the. people and their different methods of expressing themselves there ran the thread of a common kinship in pride of race, and even more s kinship of ideas, beliefs, habits, and associations. "Wherever he had been there had not been one diay or hour when he had not been at home. Coming back to England, the strongest impression remained in his mind of the width and beauty and of the glorious opportunity of their world-wide home.