AN EMPIRE ENDOWMENT

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 147, 23 June 1937, Page 10

AN EMPIRE ENDOWMENT

Thanks to the name and fame of Earl Baldwin, and to the Empire spirit of an unnamed wealthy man, quarter of a million sterling is lo be vested in "an independent trust," which "will allocate the money in the interests of inlra-Imperial relations." No details of manner of allocation are given. The chief lack in Empire-thinking is its lack of continuity; and, if the anonymous endowment could cure that defect, a great advance would result. Under present conditions, Empire-thinking is stimulated to a peak when an Imperial Conference gathers, but, among the peoples of the Empire, sinks to a low level in the long intervals between Conferences. A continuity of thinking would provide the peak moments with a background of informed public opinion, now lacking. When, after an interval of years, during which each of the Commonwealth people is absorbed in its own affairs, delegates from the four corners of the earth are called together, each guessing where the others stand, no-decision bouts are almost to be expected. It is a truism nowadays that, in international affairs, a conference cannbt succeed unless the ground is prepared. Must not this be at least equally true of intra-Imperial Conferences? Public opinion (if not official opinion) in the Commonwealth units meets these periodical Conferences insufficiently prepared. ' Without attempting to detail particular steps in the process, it seems to be reasonable to conclude that a sufficiently-endowed independent trust could sustain continuity of Empire-thinking in a way that is beyond either the will or the power of party politics.