The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. WEDNESDAY, APRIL, 22nd 1925. EMPIRE PROBLEMS AND TEAM WORK.

Hokitika Guardian, 22 April 1925, Page 2

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. WEDNESDAY, APRIL, 22nd 1925. EMPIRE PROBLEMS AND TEAM WORK.

OnK whose business it, is to note events in the .Enipiie as a whole and not merely in llie | articular part of the Empire that may baj pen to command immediate interest (annul but lie im-jii'e-scd by the multiplicity of problems Rritish .state.simuisliip at home and ore! seas, is < ailed upon to solve. Tlm.v are wide and varied as is the Empire itself; they are complicated by '.mixcurrents, clashing opinion, and divers obstacles and obstinacies, which sometimes see,n to be magnified from the very fact that, in tile vast majority ol eases, the objective is identhal. Rome was certainly never the converging point of such a se> ic.s of constitutional, military, racial, and c. oiioinic complex-

itie.s as iin]ji upon the metropolis of the British Empire. The Dominions and foreign p.olicy; the defence of the Empire, an< 1 the decree in which, il any, any and every part may he asked to contrihnte and shall he < on.sulled ; Empire trade and how to promote it without running (ounter to the liseal faiths of communities that see their own interests from wholly different audit's; the elaims of India to he admitted to full Dominion status before, she has even nerved an appreutieeship in autonomy ; tno relations of Canada to America, the implications of the White Australia policy, the hlack problem of South Africa, the rights and the disabilities of British Asiatics in the British Dominions, the education of the African native, migration, the economic- development of tropic and semi-tropic possessions, from the West Didies to West and .East Africa, .Malaya and Polynesia—these and a hundred am! one others all have to Ik? dealt with and reconciled with, the decisions of Democracy that in themselves may turn upon local considerations on the Clyde, the St. Lawrence, or the Murray! It is only necessary to glance at the twelve volume survey of “the British Empire” which Mr Hugh Gunn has edited, to realise in some measure the colossal compound of concatenated or conflicting issues that daily invite the

patient and resourceful attention of British statesmanship. The pirohlems of the British Commonwealth of Nations and Dependencies are not le-s vital to the future of mankind than those which divide and distract Euro; e. They will only he settled by skilful handling, based on knowledge and goodwill. John Stuart Mill said, “let anyone consider haw the English themselves would he governed if they knew and in red no more about their own affairs than they know and care about the Hindoos.’’ If to “Hindoos” we add the list, in-omplete as it i.s, of other > problems enumerated above, we get an idea of the formidable responsibility imposed upon the British race by what John Motley, who was assuredly not among the optimists, once called the “unlucky prowess - ’ of cur ancestors. There are pessimists a.s to the future still vocal in the British League of -Nations. Pessimism is atrophy: it never achieved anything Iteyond its own undoing. Faint heart never won, certainly never will retain. Empire. The robust faith in the destiny of the race, which found sudi fine expression in Sir George Foster's speech, printed in the December mimlier of the “British Empire Review”, the tackling of difficulties with the determination to surmount them, alone will guarantee that the future shall he worthy of the past; that the British Empire, whatever its shortcomings, shall continue to he the shield and buttress of civilisation. The choice rests with the px>ople. but, as it is obviously impossible for the people to master the multifarious subjects on which they are expected to pronounce judgment, everything depends on leadership, on the advocates who specialise and put their case before the national jury. What can be done by education was shown by Adam Smith and his school. At the time that he set out on his economic crusade, who would ever haye believed that the system under i

which Great Britain had won her industrial supremacy was doomed to reversal ? There i.s nothing more astonishing. when one thinks of all that lias been said and written about Empire history and Empire possibilities, than the absolute ignorance of some people, even on questions affecting their own part of the Empire. Education of sorts in these days there will inevitably he, on right lines or on wrong. The subversive school is active, and the mischief of which it is capable is writ large over every broadsheet published. If the people of Great Britain had- been educated to the truth about the Empire, if they bad understood all that was implied in the resolutions of the Imperial Conference of 11)213. they would hardly have given a verdict within three months of that Conierence which reduced its labours to futility. Without education on Empire matters we shall continue to waste opportunities. .Mr Henry 11. Stevens is not alone in deploring the inadequacy of our team work. Could anything be more absurd than some of the instances he gave, also set forth, in the last number of the “Review" ? Copper i.s sent from Canada to the United States to he sold to England; money i.s raised in London to purchase machinery from Germany, to be installed in Canada; work and profits on Empire enterprise go to benefit Germany and America, liecause there is no liaison between the raw producer, the capitalist, and the manufacturer. If patriotic business men fail to understand these things, how can wo expect the man in the street, or the woman in 1 lie* home, to know ? Oi the million..sterling which the Government propose to devote to the assistance of Empire marketing, in lieu oi the preference involving small taxes on loud, it i.s to he hiqx'd that a modicum will bo ear-marked for the purpose oi explaining to the public exactly what is involved in this encouragement to Empire produce. There is an insistent demand for largo.'!' expenditure on education; in u,i direction could money be spent with more advantage, moral and malerial, than in educating the people as to what the Empire means to them and ultimately to the world. Not to believe in the etticacy of such education would lie to despair of the com-

mon sense of one’s fellow-countrymen. If they were unable to see that, without. the Empire, there would lie an end not merely to the glory ot Britain, hut to the ability of these islands to provide food and homes for one hall oi the people, then obviously one need merely ask: how long before dissolution would set in y I'nfi I'tunatelv questions like Imperial Preference and Empire migration are too often misunderstood and misrepresented. Imperial l'relerciue is confounded with Protection: hmpire migration denounced as though it were

an up-to-date form of transportation. That. Imtii mean opportunity for the Briton to live and enjoy the heritage won for him by throe centuries of

daring jiiul ;c liieveliienl seems to my aim; le mind a, sell-evident prnposilit n. Tlmy seem to rar sit least n.s impnrlant ns, .say. llm n turn to the gold standard, stilt! miioii loss limited ith risk and timetdainty, lint, the bankers and tin' Treasury exports with whom Urn derision sis to gold rests, do not go to academic text-books lor guidame; they trust t<> hard laris and exponent e, ttml. when their decision is taken, they ate not called upon to submit it for approval or rejection to k'O.OdO.UbO t.f voters, not one per cent, of whom can have the least idea what is involved. If only ve cctihl ret simihir iiuk'l etnleiil guidame and action in legat'd to some Imperial problems extremists t;n the one side of the other might denotim e it- or acclaim it: the it-’ npiro nmild coon he functioning its a team, it ltd the et miomic sitmitnm. now the grave concern of all thinking men. I relieve lof most of its terrors. d\lr Atnery has said that tit kmpire organisation and development is to he round "the only tei'tam and elleetive solution of onr dillieuities the one sore h'tjie of onr ftttnre.” The next year or two will he the testing-time, and there lints', he goiiiiiue team work ii vision is to lie translated into virion whir!i the most ordinary of citizens cannot, mistake.