INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23054, 3 December 1936, Page 6

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT THE PRINCIPLES OF FREEDOM (Per United Press Association) WELLINGTON, Dec. 2. “I think every part of the Empire is now united to defend the principles of freedom and democratic government which are at stake to-day,” said the Civil Lord of the Admiralty, Mr Kenneth Lindsay, National Labour member of Parliament for Kilmarnock, when speaking of international affairs after his arrival by the Wanganella. " This issue is one of the supreme issues in the world at the moment, and my experience tells me that in every part of the Empire there is a growing awareness that democracy and sane defence must go hand in hand.” Mr Lindsay said it was of supreme importance that the different parts of the Empire should know more about each other, for there was great ignor ance in some parts of the Empire about the legislative experiments being carried out in other parts. If democracy was to survive, it had not only to defend itself, but also to adapt itself to the new economic facts of to-day, which might involve considerable changes in the economic arrangements

“ If anyone looks below the surface of things at Home, he will find that in a characteristically British way we are making a series of experiments and doing them thi'ough the National Government” continued Mr Lindsay. “There are experiments in licensing, marketing and public corporations, and these changes have to be fought out and discussed through the medium of democratic discussion, which is the breath of freedom. Some will be found good and others less good, and we want to be free to discard those that prove unsatisfactory and cling to those which seem to be on the right road.

“Ii is in that spirit that Great Britain is approaching her problems to-day. One would like to think that, with very different conditions and circumstances, each part of the Empire is similarly grappling with its own particular oroblems.”

Mr Lindsay, who is visiting the Dominion after representing the British branch of the Empire Parliamentary Association at the South Australian centenary celebrations, travelled out to Australia by air and visited the Singapore naval base and the Dutch naval base at Sourabaya on the way out. “1 am glad to say, particularly in view of the magnificent contribution made by New Zealand, that the base is well on the way to completion." ho stated “As the world knows, it cannot be in any sense considered aggressive, but it is a tangible symbol that the Empire is prepared to defend her interests in the Pacific.”