Christmas Broadcast Calls To Young People

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30633, 26 December 1964, Page 13

Christmas Broadcast Calls To Young People

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) LONDON, Dec. 24.

The Queen today called on the youth of the Commonwealth to use their “brains and courage, imagination and humanity” to build a better world.

Millions of people of all races and creeds heard the appeal in the Queen’s annual Christmas Day broadcast. To the young people of these nations, she said: “Upon you rests ' our hope for the future. You young people are needed.

“There is a great task ahead of you—the building of a new world. You have the brains and courage, imagination and humanity. “Direct them to the things that have to be achieved in this century, if mankind is to live together in happiness and prosperity.” This year’s television and radio broadcast introduced a new element in the Queen’s traditional Christmas message. For the first time the Queen’s picture was faded out at intervals from television screens to show film sequences of Royal events. These included the Queen at a dinner party in Buckingham Palace last July with Commonwealth Prime Ministers and the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh at a children’s playground in Sydney during their Australian tour in 1963.

The Queen told viewers and listeners that “for one moment I seem to be with you in many countries, which are now almost as familiar as my own native land.” She said: “The thread which runs through our Commonwealth is love of freedom and it is perhaps in this, more than anything else, that

our real wealth lies.” The word “freedom,” like the word “democracy,” was a simple one implying a simple idea. Yet freedom, to be effective, had to be disciplined. Absolute freedom was a state unknown to the historian. "If it is not to degenerate, freedom must be maintained by a thousand invisible forces: self-discipline, the common law. the right of citizens to assemble, and to speak and argue,” the Queen said. “We do not wish to impose a particular form of Government on any peoples of the world. “We merely say: ‘This is what we do: we know it’s not perfect, but it is the best sys-

tem we have been able to create after many centuries of trial and error’.” The Queen, who recorded her broadcast in Buckingham Palace on December 11, dismissed those who spoke as though the age of adventure and initiative was past. “On the contrary, never have the challenges been greater or more urgent,” she said. “The fight against poverty, malnutrition and ignorance is harder than ever, and we must do all in our power to see that science is directed towards solving these problems.” She declared her conviction “that in God’s good time all the peoples of our Commonwealth, working side by side, will attain prosperity.