ROMANCE OF EMPIRE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 26 March 1928, Page 5

ROMANCE OF EMPIRE.

THIS NEW FREEDOM. DOMINIONS BEGIN ANOTHER STAGE. BY CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT. LONDON, March 24. The Hon. L. O. M. S. Amery, Secretary for the Dominions, and General Sir Granville Ryrie were the chief guests at the Press Club Dominions’ night dinner. Air. Amery said the last Englishman to make such a trip as liis, though in the reverse direction, was Sir Francis Drake, who brought back a wonderful story of romance of the New World’s prospects opened up for England. He was not sure that Drake brought back more romance than he had seen in the last few months around the world. Each Dominion was much wrapped up in its own history and the future destiny of all, recognising that it was but part of the wider destiny of the Empire. The journey made an end of one period and the beginning pf another—the end of the stage of the building up of self-government, of which the climax and fruit were seen when all stood together in the Groat War. The minority tutelage had now ended anil they were working as colleagues with equal freedom.

Never throughout his tour had he seen or heard anything suggesting that this new freedom was conceived as the beginning of disentegration. He had heard of it as the new, sounder and more enduring basis of co-operation. The last Imperial Conference took a tremendous act of faith. The progress of the world rested on acts of faith. He believed that in one form or another this act of faith was justified for the good and the peace of the world and the advancement of the British people.