CHANGING EMPIRE

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 284, 28 August 1935, Page 13

CHANGING EMPIRE

Commonwealth of Nations

CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES

An address on “The British Empire and Post-War Constitutional Changes” was delivered at the Wellington Rotary Club luncheon yesterday by Mr. Frank Milner, M.A., rector of the Waitaki Boys' High School. He said that postwar developments were, in a broad sense, political, but Britain did present something stable iu a crumbling world, and people looking round for a sheet anchor would be at a loss where to find one if it were not the British Empire. Mr. Milner spoke of what had happened on the Continent of Europe since the war, until finally the action of Mussolini bad crystallised into a challenge to collective security. If Japan could defy the League of Nations and get away with the spoils, then why not Italy? Germany also had defied the League .so successfully that she had been given practically a free hand in the matter of armaments, and now Italy was going to try and get away with it and seek a place iu the sun. What was the alternative to interference by the League? The only one was Isolation, but Great Britain, with her world-wide interests, could scarcely isolate herself. There were only seven great nations in the world, and those who had broken away—Japan, Germany and Italy—were, after all, the nations that sought land for their people and those raw materials which they lacked within the confines of their own countries. They were going to make up that lack by an appeal to force of arms. / Mr. Milner pointed out that the principles of freedom, justice and truth had ever signalised British "Ontrol. He showed how the first settlements abroad had become Crown colonies, then full colonies, then dominions, and how, led by Canada and South Africa, control by the British Government had gradually been succeeded by self-govern-ment. The process could be observed in India, which was trained and prepared to govern itself. As an indication of the changes that were being brought about, Mr. Milner said that Governor-Generals were no longer the representatives. of the British Government, but of his Majesty the King. The Government was being represented abroad by High Commissioners. The speaker also' paid a tribute to his Majesty the King, who had played such a great part in upholding the prestige of the British nation by knowing his limitations as a monarch and by dedicating the members of his family to the service of the Empire. In his view his Majesty had given a new Interpretation to the exalted position of monarch of an Empire by his avoidance of politics, his unremitting attention to duty, his influence in social circles, and his moral character. . . . While the.Hohenzolleras, the Hapsburgs, the Romanoffs, had gone clattering down the road to limbo, the Royal House, buttressed by the Empire, had stood firm. While the powers of the English Government, had been reduced, even to the annulling of appeals to the Privy Council, there had been created in the Commonwealth of nations which comprised the Empire a spiritual entity, a spiritual entente which grew stronger and stronger with the years.