IMPERIAL IDEALS

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 75, 21 December 1934, Page 4

IMPERIAL IDEALS

Mr. Malcolm MacDonald’s . Broadcast UNITY OF EMPIRE “I think it is very important that the Empire should maintain its unity, its strength and its authority,” said Mr. Malcolm MacDonald, Under Secretary for the Dominions, in a broadcast address last night. Mr. MacDonald said that surprise had been expressed on this side of the world that he should think that: because he was a young man who had been associated in politics with a party of the Left; and devoted a large portion of his speech to an explanation of his reasons for supporting the Empire. Young men were supposed to be cynical and politicians of the Left were •supposed to have no use for such old fashioned institutions, he said, but the Empire had just as important atyart to play in the future as it had in the past. Tlie head of the Empire was not now one great sovereign nation but several great sovereign nations in close partnership, and the Empire should be maintained, not because of old associations arid ties of kinship, important though these things were, but because the British nations now had tasks to undertake for, which its peoples were particularly fitted. As examples of what he meant Mr. MacDonald pointed out that the people of New Zealand and Great Britain both believed in the same political causes and in the right of individual political and personal freedom in society. A democracy had been evolved to preserve freedom for its citizens. To-day its precious possessions were being threatened. Perhaps in New Zealand the trend was not felt to be very serious, but in other countries the foes of political freedom were launching powerful attacks on it. If any peoples were fitted by example to defend democracy against dictatorship and tyranny it was the British peoples.

Mr. MacDonald said also'that the British Empire by the example it set in co-operation between free nations, could help the cause of peace, the fight for which was so often difficult and discouraging. The form of co-operation which was found workable within the British commonwealth of nations might well be a model for the great League of Nations to adopt later on, and so. partly through British political models, the world’s peoples might one day really secure peace. After saying that time prevented his mentioning other manners in which the Empire could serve the highest ideals, the speaker concluded: “Let ns dedicate our great commonwealth of nations to the accomplishment of those high principles.”

Mr. MacDonald prefaced his address with praise for the Dominion’s scenic attractions, of Which he said its people were too modest. He spoke from the studio of 2YA, Wellington.