NEED FOR IMPERIAL UNDERSTANDING

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 94, 15 January 1943, Page 4

NEED FOR IMPERIAL UNDERSTANDING

British Empire Countries END OF DOWNING STREET

RULE (By Telegraph. —Press Association.) AUCKLAND, January 14.

An imperial understanding between Great Britain and the other members of the British Commonwealth would be needed in the future, and it should be different from that of the past, said Sir Campbell Stuart, chairman of the Imperial Communications Advisory Committee and a director of the London “Times,” in a national broadcast before leaving Sydney, where a communications conference lias been sitting. Sir Campbell, who is a Canadian, has arrived in Auckland, and will spend a week in New Zealand. There had been a lot of talk, said Sir Campbell, about imperialism, “ties that bind,” and other cliches that were usually misunderstood, but the oldfashioned imperialism which connoted Downing Street rule was so dead that no one took it seriously except a lot of “dying diehards.”- Today there were half a dozen Empire capitals, and air transport had brought them all within easy reach. A common council to discuss some form of defence and consequential foreign policy could meet in any one of those capitals from time to time for a short period without loss of local autonomy.

He said, the States of the British Commonwealth should know one another better. Every Dominion should have a high commissioner in every other Dominion. Newspaper communications should be developed to the full. More people who mattered should exchange visits, because in no other way could various points of view be understood. The free exchange of school teachers would be desirable. The liAperial Communications Advisory Committee had tried to understand the complex problems of -the various parts of the Empire in the field of telecommunications. “We feel that to be effective we each must be strong,” he said. “Each must be endowed with all that science can offer, each must be manned 'by the best personnel available, and each must understand the problems of the other, for the network of telecommunications to Australia and New Zealand requires cooperation at the other end.” The British Commonwealth embraced all kinds and conditions of races and faiths. It was loosely knit, but it was the only league of nations that had withstood the test of time. It jnuet be kept together for the most selfish reason, our own defence, and for the most noble reason, because it stood as a beacon light in a bewildered world.

Sir Campbell urged that the Dominions should make themselves selfcontained, strengthen their diplomatic services, be strong enough to take their places in any union without derogation of their autonomy, take a full part in a common foreign policy and stretch out the hand of brotherhood to the other great democracy, the United 'States.