EMPIRE AMBASSADOR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19798, 19 November 1927, Page 13

EMPIRE AMBASSADOR.

MR. L. S. AMERY'S VISIT. UNITY OF THE NATION. ii i PERSONAL CONTACT SOUGHT. GROWTH OF THE NEW VISION. Without, as ho himself says, any special mission or particular object beyond that of maintaining personal intercourse and promoting mutual understanding as an element of Imperial co-operation, Mr. li. S. Amery, Secretary of State for the Dominions, will arrive at Auckland by the Niagara on Monday from Sydney, in prosecution of his Empire tour. The visit is as full of Imperial significance as it is noteworthy. It will be tho first occasion upon which a Minister of tho British Government, while in office, has visited New Zealand. It may bo aeid to indicate, as Mr. Amery remarked in the course of an interview in London on the eve of his departure, how tho British Government realises that " tho Empire is not a wheel of which the hub is the United Kingdom, but rather a girdlo round the earth, of which each link is, from it* own point of view, a central link of the whple, and of which each part is directly joined up with the other, and not merely to a common centre." " The busy little statesman," as ho was aptly described by a Sydney cartoonist, has already toured Africa and Australia extensively, delivering a large number of public addresses and, to again quote his own words " adding to the opportunity for personal discussion instead of communication by cable and despatches, and of making new and renewing old friendships." After a month in New Zealand, Mr. Amery will go tq Canada, returning to London in time for the opening of Parliament in February. Unique British Commonwealth. An ardent Imperialist of tho most modern thought, Mr. Amery regards the Commonwealth of British nations as an institution unique in many respects. " It is not least unique in that its unity is sustained, not by control, but by contact," he said recently. " The effective unity of the Empire is not maintained by subordination to some common federal constitution, but by equal co-operation based on common traditions, ideals, and ideas, which are symbolised in our unity under a single indivisible Crown, and the spirit of mutual loyalty and helpfulness which is implied in our loyalty to that Crown. " These forces can bo made to live only by mutual understanding and sympathy, and these are things which can be strong only if we maintain personal contact and intercourse with each other." Mr. Amery has expressed the view that what was really important at the last Imperial Conference was not the conclusions arrived at, valuable as they were, but the intercourse itself, between delegates. Members of Parliament, as well as Ministers, he believes, should exchange visits. "I am glad I shall be able to visit all the Dominions," he said shortly before leaving England, " as I shall be able to get the proper perspective of things." t Ho Fatty Discussions. It is not the desire of Mr. Amery to spsak on party matters or the domestic affairs of different Dominions. Incidental to his tour he hopes to be able to settle in its course, some of the large proportion of current business going on between tho Home and Dominion Governments. Among the measures which have been advocated by Mr. Amery as media for greater personal knowledge in Home adminstrative circles touching Dominion affairs, are the sending of officials for service overseas. While he admits this as a general practice presents difficulties, he points out that recently arrangements were made for two officers to be attached to the staffs of the Governors of Ceylon and Nigeria for two or three, years. Appointments to the administrative grades of the Colonial Office are now subject to acceptance of liability to service overseas for a minimum period of one year. The now vision that is arising in the Empire and becoming increasingly present in Great Britain, was alluded to by Mr. Amery in a brilliant speech delivered at a dinner given by the New South Wales Government in Sydney recently. Co-oper-ation in economic development might be even more valuable than co-operation on the field of war, he said. Britain, in that respect, was changing greatly. * ! Conceptions of co-operation, tho British statesman added, were far stronger than over throughout the Empire. Something of its value had been learned in tho war, which revealed, as in a flash of lightning, some of the great elementary truths which underlie the community as a partnership. Hew Angle on Imperialism. Theories, fine spun and elaborate, ou economic matters, seemed a small thing when they were fighting for their lives, but ever since the war they had come to look on'their problems from a very different angle. There was growing at Home and overseas, a vision of the enormous possibilities that lay before them all if they would only work together, and, instead of struggling alone, each in his own watertight compartment, pool their resources, build round their individual home markets a wider market for all, and use their economic strength to the best advantage. "Wo are slow people to move," said Mr. Amery, "but when, we do move, we move with very sure purpose and determination that rarely ceases until the thing is achieved. I believe ithat in the next few years Great Britain will begin to throw herself heartily into the leadership in building up a fabric of prosperity that no nation, nor any combination of nations, has ever brought about before." Great Britain could boast that in the course of its history it had done "some things "that mattered." But tho British idea was not the Chinese ideal of isolation, nor that of keeping aloof, as sometimes did the United States. The Empire was bound to take its part in international affairs. That was a tradition that had influenced the minds of its people in tho past and would influence them in the future. " It is from every point of view," Mr. Amery concluded; "what it means to the individual life of our, and of other nations, that I would commend to you the study of the problems that unite us in the work of our British Commonwealth." When Mr. Amery left England on his Empire tour, the Prime Minister, Mr. Baldwin, assumed general control of the Dominions office, and while Mr. Baldwin was in Canada Earl Balfour acted in his I ttwd. The Colonial Office is in charge r«f Mr. Ormsby-Gore, Under-Secretary of [State, who In acting-Secretary of Stat*.