EMPIRE RELATIONS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 77, 28 September 1938, Page 23

EMPIRE RELATIONS

CONFERENCE REVIEW

EXCLUSIVENESS NOT WANTED

MARCH OF NATIONS

(From "The Post's" Representative.)

SYDNEY, September 30,

A report on the discussions at the unofficial conference on British Commonwealth Relations, which has been held at Lapstone during the past fortnight, was read to delegates by Mr. H. V* Hodson, editor of the "Round Table," who was recorder at the conference. Mr. Hodson said that the conference had been held under the shadow of the gravest international crisis since 1914. "Some of us felt that this was an advantage because our discussions were thereby dyed with a realism which the most airy-minded could not avoid," Mr. Hodson added. "Others of us felt that it was a disadvantage because, wliile we could do nothing to affect th,e urgent situation, its very urgency and its emotional content would distort our vision of what we came here to discuss. I share both these views. Realism helps and anxiety hinders rational discussion. It is at least certain that our discussions on some topics would have been very different had they taken place in an atmosphere of international calm with an unbroken vista of the future." Mr. Hodson said that among his clearest impressions of the conference was the assertion, frequently repeated and never challenged, that the British Commonwealth could not find the inspiration—at least an adequate inspiration—for its own life from within itself alone. Whether in the economic or in the political field, there did not appear to him to be any wish to erect an exclusive group or to believe that the Commonwealth could retain its own coherence and strength by advancing its own welfare or security at the expense of the rest of the world. THE CROWN A LIVING SYMBOL. "There was no challenge to the position of the Crown as a unifying factor in the Commonwealth/ Mr. Hodson added, "but an Irish delegate reminded us that loyalty to the Crown was not and could not be universally felt among the peoples of the Commonwealth. The Irish delegate continued that what mattered was loyalty to the Commonwealth connection and acceptance of the Crown as its living symbol. My own personal view after listening to the discussions is that neither antiFascism nor anti-dictatorships can find a significant place among the permanent and unifying objectives of foreign and defence policy in the Common-J wealth." Referring to the British Commonwealth of the future, Mr. Hodson said: "Through half-closed eyes I see, in the words of an Irish delegate, a Commonwealth not static, but dynamic; dynamic within itself through the gradual working out of the principle of self-government, which will steadily increase the number of its own elect, and gaining dynamic force from with-' out, by seeking its inspiration in ideals' that are broader than itself and can be brought to. fruition only on a world scale—individual and group freedom based on responsibility, peace as the condition of freedom,, the brotherhood lof all races. The Commonwealth is a miniature, world, containing peoples of every colour and from all continents. As it works out its own destiny, the world, in which it is a part, will be I struggling with the same problems on i a larger scale. Gradually the Commonwealth and the parts of the world that have progressed as far or furtlier in the art of self-government will become assimilated. The Commonwealth order is only a path to a world I order. I foresee this gradual assimilation happening in the economic as well as the political sphere. IN VAN TOWARDS WORLD ORDER. I "Whether the Commonwealth will ■ then continue or pass away as having | fulfilled its usefulness will be for some British Commonwealth Relations Conference of the future to discuss. Within the Commonwealth itself, is it not clear that there will be wide divergences, both in the degree and in the character of our co-operation? Nothing in our discussions suggests that uniformity is possible, even if it is desirable. "In defence, where realistic views must. always be taken, we already practise greatly varying degrees and kinds of. peace-time co-operation, and it seems that this is likely to continue and intensify, and, as the Commonwealth is a microcosm of the world, it seems likely that progress towards a world order will follow similar lines, with no rigid and universal machinery i for securing co-operation • either in mutual defence or in peaceful settlement.

"In a march towards a world, order, the British Commonwealth, if it survives, will certainly be in the van, for our discussions have shown at least one thing plainly, that the Commonwealth cannot prolong its life as an end in itself, but only as a means to a still greater end."