"THE PERSONAL TOUCH"

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 120, 25 May 1925, Page 4

"THE PERSONAL TOUCH"

It will hardly be denied by those whose vision extends beyond their own territorial boundaries that close, and even closer, connection between Great Britain and the British Dominions is mutually desirable. Both have so much to gain by the most intimate relations ; both would lose so much by drifting farther apart than their existing and unalterable geographical positions place them. J n these circumstances the value of the personal touch, to which Mr. Amery, Colonial Secretary, refers, in the cablegrams to-day, cannot be overemphasised. His opinion, based on experience, is that personal contact is more efficacious in strengthening union than dispatches and telegrams. This view is justified by the light thrown upon imperial affairs of. high moment by Dominion statesmen at Imperial Conferences hold in London. Tho Dominions, in alt eaasoieace, have waay »ud diß,-

cult domestic problems to solve; but so long as they form part of the British Empire, so long will it be imperative for them and for the statesmen of Great Britain to keep the closest possible connection, and this can only be done in propria persona. The ways and means of doing this are of quite secondary importance compared with the principle of which, it sometimes seems, there is too slow a recognition except in circumstances of the kind created by the Great War. Modern communications are now so speedy that distance offers an almost negligible- obstacle. If anything, the need of the personal touch in Imperial relations is greater now than ever before in the existence of the British Empire as a visible entity.