PICTURE OF EMPIRE

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 83, 8 April 1938, Page 11

PICTURE OF EMPIRE

ITS WORK AND AIMS

GLASGOW EXHIBITION

PREMIER'S MESSAGE

(British Official Wireless.) (Received April 8, 11.20 a.m.)

RUGBY, April 7.

The Prime Minister, Mr. Neville Chamberlain, spoke in Westminster Hall, London, at a meeting to wish success 'to the Empire Exhibition •at Glasgow.

"It is proper," he said, "that the message we send from this ancient hall should travel beyond the shores of these islands to those distant lands overseas which are linked with us in common allegiance to the Crown, for the exhibition, as its aim shows, is theirs as well as ours. In it an attempt has been made to present a picture of the culture, life, and industry not of one country but of the many countries 'Of the Empire. The exhibition is therefore no national display; it is something more, and for this reason it has special significance at this time.

"Nbw, more perhaps than at any other time, there is need for co-opera-tion and understanding between the nations. We of the British Commonwealth can give a living example of these principles. We are pledged to work for peace and progress in the world, and it is my hope that the exhibition will make a contribution to that end. By helping the peoples of the Empire to know and understand one another it will strengthen their powers of common effort. By letting the people of pther countries see something of ourselves it will help them to appreciate more clearly our work and aims.

SCOTLAND AND EMPIRE,

"Yet ■ we' must remember that the exhibition is being held in Scotland and was brought into being by Scottish enterprise, initiative, and money. It is very fitting, for Scotland has made and will continue to make a notable contribution to Imperial development. People of Scottish birth and origin are found in all the corners of the Empire. I hope many of them, and many people also from countries outside the Empire, will visit the exhibition. These visitors will see much of Scotland itself and will recapture something of its spirit and traditions. They will, I believe, see a new Scotland being built on the traditions of the old Scotland, and will carry away with them an impression .of vitality and enterprise and of the resolve on the part of Scotland to keep the notable place in Imperial and world affairs which she has occupied in the past.

WORLD TASKS TTPIFIED.

"Meanwhile, the exhibition typifies in its hundred pavilions and 175 acres many of the tasks of the whole world today. In our Commonwealth of Nations we have five hundred million people. They trade with each other to the extent of £700,000,000 a year, and .with the rest of the world to the extent of £1,500,000,000. Neither the United Kingdom nor any of the component parts of the Empire is or seeks to be a closed circuit. For agricultural products and industrial raw materials the United Kingdom remains the great entrepot of the world—this trade was worth over £110,000,000 last year. And this gives our community its special character—it is a world community responsive tb all currents and all changes—but all this must rest upon a strong consolidated base at home. It was an idea very near the heart of my father, whose ■ proudest title was that of Colonial Secretary. • It is an ideal which'l have done my utmost to forward, not for a narrow aim alone, but because I firmly believe that the first duty we owe to the world is to do our utmost with regions for which we and we alone have a responsibility."