LIBERALS AND EMPIRE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13285, 18 September 1906, Page 5

LIBERALS AND EMPIRE.

STATEMENT BY MR. _

CHURCHILL.

COLONIES NOTHING TO FEAR,.

Ry Telegraph.—Press Association.—

(Rcceivnd September 17, 10.16 p.m > LoxOon, September 17. The full text of the letter which Mr. Winston Churchill sent recently to Mr. Greenwood. M.P., who is travelling in the colonics, - respecting the attitude of Liberals and Conservatives to the Imperial idea, has been published. '

Mr. Churchill, in this letter, admits thai, the confidence shown by the Canadian and Australasian statesmen—the only set of British politicians with whom they had for long been accustomed to ileal—had been in great measure worthily repaid. The Conservative predominance had synchronised with and generously aided the growth of the Imperial idea, and " there are now new men with other- principles and different, methods, but no change has taken placo in the central im-

pulse, aspirations, or ultimate • aim. Canada's and Australasia's progress and prosperity are largely ascribed to Liberal social principles, carried in some ways to far more logical extremes than in the Motherland. The Empire has nothing to fear from the Liberals, by whose Imperial principles of colonial autonomy, lofty humanity, and peaceful foreign policy, the structural cohesion of the Empire alone has been achieved and maintained."

In a previous cablegram it was stated that Mr. t Churchill had aisked Mr. .Greenwood to In- and convince the Canadians that the Conservatives did not monopolize the interest in Imperialism, and that the advent of tie Liberals did not mean the weakening of the British affection for the colonies or belief in the ultimate aim of m solid defensive league of free democratic communities under the leadership of the Crown.