THE EMPIRE AND THE WORLD

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 152, 29 June 1935, Page 8

THE EMPIRE AND THE WORLD

Il is not so very many years ago that Britain's world-empire ./was held by statesmen of standing in the Motherland to be a weakness rather than a strength, and public utterances to that effect are on record. The War changed all that—or should have done—for the contributions of the Dominions are admitted, even by former enemies, to have turned the scale when the issue was in the balance. Had the Central Powers foreseen this rally to the flag, they might have thought twice before resorting to arms. Such, however, must have been their impression of the British Empire in peace time that they could not conceive its unity in war. If that -was the feeling in 1914, what is it in 1935? Mr. Malcolm Mac Donald, the new Colonial Secretary, who is one of the few British Ministers with a first-hand knowledge of the Dominions, reporting on his visit to Australia ,for the Melbourne Centenary, according to a cable message today, says: The authority and power of the British peoples depend on the ability to increase Dominion populations steadily and largely over a long period. Not only are half-populated countries weak links in the,chain of defences, but fateful in a clash of ideas. ■Mr. Mac Donald then mentions some of the ideas, advanced in certain countries (not named), such as: "Return to the law of the jungle in international affairs," "class war as a prelude to universal Cb'mmunism," "dictatorships in order to establish State authority," and adds: These ideas gain converts daily. Pitted against them are the British ideas of democratic government, individual liberty, and ordered , international peace. Great Britain's voice may be too weak if she alone advocates them, but if, in the course of years, she is surrounded by loyal and powerful Dominions, whose statesmen speak for large world-wide populations, British principles will probably not only hold their own, but predominate in world affairs. ' With the sentiments expressed by the Colonial Secretary few in any of the Dominions, certainly in New Zealand, will disagree. The ideal of an Empire united in peace as well as in war is common to all, but how to achieve it is the Empire's greatest problem, to solve which the Empire's statesmen in Britain and the Dominions alike have not yet offered a plan. Increasing Dominion populations "steadily and largely" means migration on a big scale, and no acceptable method—acceptable to all parties—has yet been propounded. Nor will every Dominion, without reservation and qualification, be prepared to follow Britain's lead in foreign affairs. The essence of the problem seems to us to lie in improved communications 'all round with a view to a wide and rapid circulation not only of ideas but of people, too, with settlement wherever the conditions suit. The Romans> whose Empire was the longest-lived of ancient times, and the Americans in our own day found easy communication the secret of unity, and the British Empire seems instinctively, with its network of airways, to be moving in that direction.