AUSTRALIAN STATESMAN MAKES PLEA FOR UNITY

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25581, 24 August 1948, Page 4

AUSTRALIAN STATESMAN MAKES PLEA FOR UNITY

THE EMPIRE

[By R. G. MENZIES, K.C., MP., Leader of the Opposition in Australia.! (Printed by exclusive arranftment with the "Sunday Times.")

Two immensely important facts should be remembered. The first is that the British Empire’s contribution to the winning of the war, remarkable and vital as it was, could not have been made without the closest intraEmpire co-operation under master schemes. To select a few examples, we had in the Middle East one command; in the magnificent Empire Air Training Scheme we had one method, one objective, one complete fusing of the skill, daring, and endurance of thousands of the best of every British nation; we had Winston Churchill as the loved and trusted leader of all of us. All over the British world the question to the Mother Country, spoken or unspoken, was not, How can you win?” but “How can we With proper national modesty, that co-operation seems to me one of our greatest contributions to human freedom and the growth of ultimate decency and quietness among men. The second fact is of a different kind; it is melancholy; it is not even sensible. It is that since the war ended we have had no Empire Conference, no real concerting of Empire policy on the higher levels, or even on the middle or the low.

A Dangerous Course A dangerous course is being followed by those who are obsessed by aggressive notions of independence. Such notions produced the British Nationality Bill which has just passed through Parliament at Westminster. They are utterly inconsistent with that spirit of family unity which has made us what we are and has done so much for the world. , International conferences there have been, and in plenty. The less their authority, the greater has been the enthusiasm to attend them and to enjoy the privilege (so dear to most of us) of engaging in speech without power and therefore without responsibility. At Dumbarton Oaks, at San Francisco, in the curiously named “Security Council,” in the United Nations General Assembly, at Geneva, at Havana, at a score of places, it has been found possible for British nations to be represented. But by some curious aberration of the calendar it has not been found possible to bring together in one place and at one time the effective representatives of the British nations to discuss what must be for us the most significant and important of all international questions: how can we the British people, so think and decide and work together that we can make our most effective joint and several contribution to our own development and strength and therefore to the pacification and progress of the world? Why was it found necessary to have an Empire Air Training Scheme but is not now thought worth while to have an Empire Peace and Good Living Training Scheme? A family which has fought as one man to defend the family homes and the truths for which the family stands cannot apparently find time or opportunity to devise ways and means of seeing that a victorious struggle is followed by a good peace and a good future. We have al-

ready lost much time; we can afford to lose no more. Sporadic meetings between individuals, masses of circular cables in which the constant search is for the lowest common denominator, are not enough. Let me name a few topics: Empire military defence and strategy. The redistribution of Empire population. Empire foreign policy, particularly in relation to the peace settlements with Germany and Japan. Empire response to the threat of Imperialist Communism. The Empire attitude towards the proposals for Western European Union. Empire trade and commerce in this new dollar world. Empire development of joint resources which, viewed as a whole, are as yet rich in unclaimed and unexplored assets. Will we achieve our best ends on al] or any of these matters by treating them as either casual or unrelated problems? Will we serve our day and generation, and a world which cries out for leadership and coherence, by going each of us nis own way? There are three great internationally significant groups in the world to-day. One is the United States of America. Whatever its political controversies at home, it speaks in the councils of the nations as one people—united, powerful, skilful, proud. The second group is the Soviet Union. It seizes each opportunity as it comes. It speaks as one. The dictatorship of the proletariat may have produced the dictatorship of one or a few; but it still remains true that it has one policy and one voice. One Policy Needed The third group (and I have not placed them in order of true importance) is the British Empire. Has it one policy on the big things? Has it one voice, or, if you prefer it, one harmony of several voices? How can it, if its constituent States devote so much .of their time to emphasising their independence, as if their celebrated equality of status meant equality in fact, and show such fear of having it said that there is "a British bloc”? The words of interested propagandists assume a false and terrifying importance in the minds of the weak: they ought to be ignored by the strong. I declare my conviction that a United British Empire voice and policy are needed to-day as perhaps never before. Without abandoning any of the rights of adult nationhood, let us face the truth that in our independence we are mutually inter-dependent; that we shall,, as always, do better as a team than as units. I have such an abiding faith in the practical British genius, its bravery, its good humour, its humanity, its real democratic belief that governments exist only to serve the interests of ordinary men and women, that I venture to remind readers that these things are still at risk. We cannot be weakened or destroyed except by our own small-mindedness or indifference. If we are to remain great, not in terms of foolish pride or potential aggression, but in our capacity to play our part in the making of a true civilisation, we must cease thinking in small terms and cease limiting our horizon to our own town or island or continent. We need a real Empire policy, and we need it now.