Peace And Empire

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 68, 13 December 1939, Page 13

Peace And Empire

Sir, —Complaints were made at the Presbyterian General Assembly lately sitting in Christchurch that the Press had .almost ignored its proceedings. I trust, therefore, “The Dominion’’ will publish tins comment on a remark made by the moderator in his address to the assembly on “The Church and the World Today.” The Rt. Rev. J. L. Robinson said: “The Church will do well to . . . teach that the coining of the Kingdom of God on earth is of even more importance for the welfare and happiness of men than the preservation of the British Empire.” It certainly is, but why insinuate that the preservation of the British Empire is inimical to “the coming of the Kingdom of God”? Is not the very reverse the truth? Has any Empire ever done so much, and is still doing so, for the welfare, evangelization and protection of backward and heathen races? Is it not true that no country in the world even approaches the British Empire in the amount spent on missionary enterprise and in its world-wide distribution of the Scriptures, through such organizations as the British and Foreign Bible Society, and that only the protection of the Empire’s might enables this to be done without let or hindrance?

The suggestion underlying the moderator’s insinuation is that the handing over of some of our colonies or mandated territories to Germany after the war would help to bring about a lasting peace by thus satisfying her desire for such territories. 'Phis is to be done without consulting the unfortunate natives’ wishes iu the matter —a vicarious sacrifice for the sake of an imagined millennium, as base as that of Czechoslovakia at Munich, and eventually as fruitless of the desired results. No one who has read “The German Colonial Claim,” by the Rt. Hon. L. G. Amery, former Secretary for the Colonies, disclosing Germany’s bestial brutality to the natives in her former possessions; and “The Exploitation of East Africa,” by R. Cotipland, professor of colonial history in Oxford University, exposing the unscrupulous manner in which Germany obtained a foothold in Africa, could tolerate for one moment the thought of handing back a square yard of any overseas territory, for it should he remembered such things were not done under Hitlerism but under the Kaiser’s Government, proving that the doing of these evil things is inherent in the German character when dealing with the defenceless. —I am, etc., H. IRWIN. Tikokino, H. 8., December 9.