EMPIRE COHESION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22540, 3 October 1936, Page 23

EMPIRE COHESION

COMMON rOLICY IDEAL LORD TWEEDSM UI R'S VIEWS THE MECHANISM AND RISKS [I'RO.M OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT] VANCOUVER, Sept. S) In an outspoken address here, which, he admitted at its commencement, dealt with a subject which was, ''in a senso political, but which is also beyond party politics," the GovernorGeneral, Lord Tweedsmuir, joined issue with a section of public: opinion in the Motherland in expounding his ideals of Empire. There were two component parts in the Empire, lie said—colonics, populated mainly by peoples of other races, and an alliance of sovereign Dominions. What was to be the future of this great alliance? There must he a common policy on matters of common concern. A mere formal confederation under the Crown was not sufficient. Softner or later, there must be devised sojiio "apparatus" of common action. Word of Caution ".But here I would venture on a word of caution," His .Excellency observed. "Some of my Imperialist friends, especially iu Britain, seem to me to be a. little too eager to hurry the pace. J'liev would like to gather all the Dominion statesmen round a table and sit down and work out a plan for an executive alliance in every department of common interest. Well, 1 do not believe that that would work. That is not the way the Empire has developed in the past, and it is not the way it will develop in the future. Any attempt now to create a formal organisation for common action would, to my mind, be hound to fail. "We must fee.', our way carefully as the different issues arise. We must solve each problem as it confronts us, and by and by we will find that the solutions will link themselves up into a real mechanism of co-operation. The Chamberlain Policy "Just as Imperial Federation in Mr. Chamberlain's day would have stunted Imperial development, and might even have wrecked it altogether, so any attempt in our own day to go too fast and to lay down rules in advance before the proper atmosphere is created would not increase but would gravely impair imperial solidarity. "It would not bo proper for me to enlarge on this matter, or on what regional agreements for security may be necessary as intermediate machinery before we can attain a true internationalism," he said. "I merely suggest to you these points as subjects to which it is most desirable that pub-lic-spirited men should give their best thought. For no country to-day can aflord to be without a foreign policy. "We in Canada are far enough from the Old World, with its troubles; but we have the Pacific at our door, and beyond the Pacific there are many difficult problems awaiting settlement. The world has shrunk to-day, and there is no part of the globe which can say that its geographical position renders it immune from danger."