A PICTURESQUE SPEECH

Evening Star, Issue 19520, 30 March 1927, Page 11

A PICTURESQUE SPEECH

EARL BALFOUR AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE

“ The British Constitution is tho only possible Constituton for tho British Empire as it exists to-day,” said tho Ear! of Balfour recently in an address at Edinburgh University on the report of the recent Imperial Conference. Dealing with the power of sentiment as a binding force, Lord Balfour said an imaginary critic might say: “Remember that some of tho memories of Stmio of our great dominions are not entirely occupied with matters in which there has been no controversy between this country and their predecessors. If memory is to he the foundation of your future greatness, are your memories always so satisfactory that they will supply a solid foundation?”

I am a Scotsman,” said Lord Balfour, ‘ addressing Scotsmen, and I feel, therefore, peculiarly qualified to speak on this subject. I absolutely refuse to allowany man, he ho English or be ho Scottish, to rob mo of my share in Magna Charta or Shakespeare because of Bannockburn and Flodden, (Laughter.)

“ What we have to do we can do. We can look back without shame; we can look forward with unbroken hope. All our greatest work had been, as it were, done unconsciously, not in the spirit of system-makers, but in the spirit of people dealing from moment to moment with the necessities of the moment. The English, without really knowing what they. were doing, invented Parliaments. The Scots, without really knowing what a lead they were giving, were the first who showed what democratic patriotism could do in the very height of the Middle Age and the feudal system.”