BRITISH EMPIRE INSPIRATION

Hawera Star, Volume LIII, 19 August 1933, Page 11

BRITISH EMPIRE INSPIRATION

“'J'HEBE is an inspiration "which cornels from patriotism, but as 'there is also therein an incentive to false aims, it is veil t'o clarify our ideas about our association with our own great Coimmonwealth,” writes the Bov. Ernest C. Tan ton in the 1 ‘Methodist Magazine.” “As a matter of fact., the term ‘British Empire’ is somewhat misleading. Only a small proportion of its population has any racial claim to be called British, and only a few of its territories are governed on ‘ imperial’ Hruew. Thu' supreme political dominion and' absolute control of an emperor are entirely lacking almost everywhere. Per-' haps that is a sufficient, reason for the fact thalt we feel a certain elevation of spirit and pride when we remember that we belong .to it. ~ . There is no common chest no uniform svs tom of law or currency or weights and measures; no imperial religion; not even | an identical official language.

Fundamental Principles of Goodwill

“Yet there is something which holds these separate members of our far-flung Empire in. unit, A sense of oneness exists, apart from all the negatives we notice; a love which finds expression in our poets, a vision of world-usefulness which is be.eo*ning more and more articulate as the decades pass. There is an idea of freedom which, if it is rarely expressed in the form o,f a philosophy, nevertheless consists in the understanding that our Government is more than government by consent, since it. is government by co-operation of the governed. The inspiration which comes t : o us n,s members of the British Empire is not that of mere patriotism. Patriotism has often led to excesses of violence and tyranny of which no earnest mind ca'n be proud'. It has come because we recognise that there are fundamental principles of goodwill to be found in our association of races, n goodwill which is intensified as they hold the more firmly to their necessity in our common life.”