PLEA FOR DEMOCRACY.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 14 July 1938, Page 7

PLEA FOR DEMOCRACY.

TRIBUTE TO THE LATE GEORGE V. AMERICAN AMBASSADOR ON REFUGEE PSOBLEM. (British Official Wireless.) Received Wednesday/ 9.20 p.m. -, . : ■ RUGBY, July 12.

~ The American Ambassador, Mr. J. P Kennedy, • unveiled at Winchester Cathedral a window to the memory of the late Kinge George,V., presented to the Cathedral by groups of American citizens. Mr. Kennedy said: "The late King George V. occupied a very warm and special place in the hearts of Americans and my fellow countrymen will always cherish his memory. "Certain nations have attempted to relieve the suffering of some of their people at the expense of others of their inhabitants, in their parts of the world where the idea still exists thai national good is the sum total of the welfare of all its individual inhabitants. We are now being called upon to stretch our already hardpressed resources to cover the care of refugees cast out of their native land, because they belong to certain races, or profess certain religious thoughts or think thoughts of free men. Let us do what we can to take care of this immediate emergency. Representatives of a number of well-minded nations are now in session trying to devise ways and means to see that these refugees do not perish cruelly and hopelessly. Our hearts are with our delegates in their difficult but humane task.

"We must ever be alert to defend the thesis that no permanent national happi ness can ever be achieved in the kind of society to which we are accustomed, and which we wish to preserve, by one segment of our populations at the expense of others. I have heard it said in London as well as Washington that democracy has failed; that the system of representative government is as outmoded as that of the ancient Greek States; that the individual can no longer claim to have inalienable rights such as those guaranteed by the Magna Charta, but only those which the State may as a matter of convenience grant to him; that the system of more or less free economy under which we try to transact our business is self-destructive and that all individualism must be crushed by the increasing weight of industrial and financial combinations. I am sure the late King George V. nctfer believed in any of these things nor would he believe them today." So far as he could tell, continued Mr. Kennedy, observing his late Majesty's activities and life from across the Atlantic, he determined that the humblest of his subjects should possess an ever increasing store of rights and comforts and that the economic machinery of this nation and the world should operate to increase the prosperity and happiness of all British subjects.

"I am certain that never in his life did he wish any guaranteed right of any citizen to be diminished or abolished. Let us then do all we can to pre serve for our own countries at least the kind 'of life King George V. stood for and advocated. Decency and respect for the rights of others and a yearning for liberty has not been abolished from our hearts. Let us make sure they never are."

Stating he had just returned from a brief visit to the United States, Mr. Kennedy observed: "One gets there much the same comforting feeling on solidity which is characteristic of the people and life of Britain. Tn both countries people want change—they insist on constant progress and better - nient. We must never rest on our laurels and think we have reached the ultimate design for the ideal way of life. So long as we are holding out to the mass of our people the hope that their Government and their State is working ceaselessly and unremittingly for their benefit, just so long will those people pin their faith to democracy," he added.