EMPIRE PARLIAMENTARY MISSION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19350, 10 December 1924, Page 5

EMPIRE PARLIAMENTARY MISSION.

TOUR OF SOUTH AFRICA. DEPARTURE OF DOMINION DELEGATES. (From Odb Own Correspondent.) PIETERMARITZBURG, Nov. 5. All the dominion parliamentary delegates have left South Africa with the exception of Sir John Duke (New Zealnad) and Dr R. N. Maloney (Australia). Most of the Canadian representatives left on Friday by the R.M.S. “Armadale Castle” for England. Mr W. G. M’Q.uarrie, K.C., M.P. for New Westminster, British Columbia, left for Canada a week ago., via Australia, in the s.s. Euripides. IMPRESSIONS BY THE DELEGATES. The delegation was headed originally by the Right Hon. J. H. Thomas in his capacity of Secretary of State for the Colonies, and ho had an ideal lieutenant in the genial Lord Burnham, who soon got into touch with both press and public. LVlr Thomas seems to feel acutely the weight of Ministerial, responsibility. He was as discreet as a tombstone, though more cheerful, having some gift of humour. Professor Ramsay Muir’s brilliant Empire speech at Bloemfontein made one regret his failure to obtain re-election for Rochdale in the recent Liberal debacle at Home. He did not get back, indeed, in time to make his voice heard. Dr Chappie (Dumfriesshire )and Captain Brass (Clitheroe) discoursed to us very hopefully indeed on the prospects of cotton growing in South Africa. Sir Robert Hamilton, M.P. for the Orkney and Shetland Islands was also a frequent speaker. Sir John Luke generally responded for New Zealand, and his smiling face was a real advertisement for the dominion. It seemed to reflect the “happiness of sweet retired content.” Sir John Luke’s speeches like those of the Commonwealth delegates, were of practical character, as distinguished from the rhetorical nature of most of the addresses of the British and Canadian parliamentarians. Sir John, with Mr Givens, president of the Australian Senate, gave South Africa a well-deserved rebuke for its lamentable lack of support of the Royal Navy. This timely criticism was held in the congenial atmosphere of the Navy League at Johannesburg. It will bear fruit, but' it seemed to have had little effect on Colonel Cresswell, the Union Minister of Defence, who addressed the same body shortly afterwards very disappointingly, though he was accompanied by his naval brother from Australia, Admiral Creswell. Sir John Luke ventured to offer the Union some excellent advice on blind alley, unemployment and other cognate subjects, and particularly advised South Africa to stick to its primary industries—wool and cotton. The New Zealand delegate received a warm welcome from his Cornish compatriots on the Rand. Senator Guthrie, of Australia, gave us the real benefit of his opinions on sheep and wool, about which he is a leading expert. Senator Givens, president of the Australian Senate, made a deep impression with his final speech at Capetown, when he reminded his hearers that Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa formed a garrison of nine million whites in the Southern Hemisphere as against a vast and rapidly increasing number of the coloured races, and he emphasised, as he had done several times before, the need for white co-operation and co-ordination. The Cape Times has suggested in this connection an early SoutTi African visit to Australasia.

Sir George Foster, of Canada, stood out as the great orator of the tour, notwithstanding his 76 years. Empire, under God, seems to be his religion, and he had the sublime faith to ask us to contemplate what the British Empire would be like —not 10 or 50 years hence, but actually a thousand years hence. Belief in Empire was at high water mark during the tour . It was not a case of “faint yet pm-suing,” but belief in this electric League of Nations of ours is held as a gospel for the acceleration of the time when war shall be no more.