BRITISH EMPIRE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22018, 26 January 1935, Page 12

BRITISH EMPIRE

WORK OF THE SOCIETY ADDRESS BY COMMISSIONER r The aims and functions of the Royal Empire Society were outlined yesterday by Commander R.. M. Reynolds, travelling commissioner of the society, at a luncheon held in Milne and Choyco's Reception Hall. Mr. H. J. Wernham presided, and the luncheon was attended by members of various organisations interested in Empire welfare, and other guests. Commander Reynolds is making a tour of the principal towns of Australia and New Zealand.

" One of the principle functions of the Royal Empire Society is to bind together the Home country and the colonies," Commander Reynolds said. In the middle of the last century the Colonies were not thought very much. about, and as they grew and sought mow freedom there was a lamentable indifference in some quarters concerning them. Fortunately there was another section of vthe public that thought differently, and in 1868 the Colonial Society, later the Royal Colonial Institute, was formed. It was not too much to say that the activities of the founders of the movement brought about a realisation of the value of th? Colonies to the Empire. The old idea of Empire, lands held together by military power on the one s>ide and fear on the other, had now gone, and had been replaced by the British Commonwealth of Nations. '' We look on the Empire as the last barrier between Western civilisation and Communism," Commander Reynolds gether we shall most certainly and most inevitably sink separately." Plans for the formation of a branch of the society in Auckland were mentioned by Commander Reynolds.