THE BRITISH EMPIRE

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 130, 5 June 1925, Page 9

THE BRITISH EMPIRE

HON, W. NOSWORTHY ON ITS MISSION That the British Empire, by tire help of the Almighty, has been appointed to help guide the world into the ways of peace, was the view expressed by the Hon. W. ■ Nosworthy (Minister of Agriculture), in an address at Dunedin on the King's Birthday. Mr. Nosworthy said it was a great pleasure to him to have the opportunity of attending a meeting of the Overseas Club. Such clubs served a very -valuable purpose in preserving the intangible, but. unbreakable, bonds between this Dominion, and the Motherland. They helped to make the newcomer from the Old Country realise that he was still among his blood relations, and that he ■was still in a portion of the one great Empire. The Overseas Club did much to keep .alive and vigorous their great Imperial ideals, and their feeling of pride in an Empire which was essentially a conimd'nwealth of nations—ah Empire depending for its existence, not on force, but on- community of interests. New Zealand Governments had done' their utmost to keep their Auglo-Saxbh blood as nearly pure as possible, and New Zealanders'were still able to' boast of being the most homogeneous people in tho.Empire.Their late beloved Prime Minister, {Mr< Massey) had once been ' described by the late Lord Milner (himself a great Imperialist) as a "staunch Imperialist." He hoped and believed that his successor (the Hon. J. G.'Coates) -would prove a worthy successor in this respect. Amid all the discord of party politics in New Zealand it .was pleasiiig to'-say that there was harmony between the two principal parties on the subject of their duty to tke Empire. In "this they reflected the opinion of the people of this most: loyal' Dominion—a people read3 v at any time to cast their petty differences aside when any danger .'threatened either their Mother Country or their sister Dominions. .'■"..'. His Majesty the King they looked up to as the personification of- this spirit of unity, and the Crown, they regarded as the symbol, not of thraldom, but of the great heritage of freedom handed to them "by their ancestors. It was for them to preserve, that heritage, to fight the forces of disunion, and iiiako their glorious Empire a still nioro powerful instrument for the maintenance "of peace, progress, and enlightenment throughout the world..He would go further, and say that'he believed the Empire had been allowed by the Almighty to help to .guide ;the world into the ways of peace. -.-; .