BRITAIN’S ROLE

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29764, 6 March 1962, Page 9

BRITAIN’S ROLE

“Still World PoweP 9 (N Z.PA-Reuter —Copyright) MEMPHIS, March 3. The British Ambassador. Sir David Ormsby-Gore, said last night that although Britain was no longer “a sort of world heavy-weight champion.” she was still a world power. In a speech at a civic dinner at Memphis, he said that the true sense in which Britain was a world power was apparent from her role financially in the organisation of free world trade and economic development, politically as the focal point of the Commonwealth and militarily as a partner of the United States. "We are not any longer a sort of world heavy-weight champion, in terms of population, natural resources or gross national product,” he said. “But we are still a world power in the literal sense that we have political, economic and military capabilities. commitments and responsibilities on every continent and on every ocean of the world.” The United States and Britain should never cease to harmonise their policies, he said. “In agreement, we can do so much good; in disagreement, so much harm.” The Ambassador took issue with critics of the Commorwealth who. he said, were inclined to be cynical about Britain's role in it and saw it either as a “hypocritical disguise” for British imperialism or as a device through which a weak Britain could pretend to have an empire. "This sort of comment misses entirely the most important characteristic of the Commonwealth, namely that it happens to be a true microcosm of the free world itself,” Sir David OrmsbyGore said. ■