FORMS OF GOVERNMENT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23858, 12 July 1939, Page 17

FORMS OF GOVERNMENT

“ I think these last years and the years since the war. or, let us say. since the peace, have taught us British many things,” said Lord Baldwin in a recent speech. “Among other things I think that they have taught us what perhaps we did not realise before, and that is that the internal form of government of any country is a matter for that country and for nobody else provided that that form of government is not sought to be imposed by force on any other country. I think that is very self-evident, and I think you will admit. as I do. that there has been one tendency among our people that may arise from a natural conceit but is dangerous, and that is that we have been too prone to feel that what is good for us is good for everybody else. We have often made the mistake of believing a democratic government is a government suited to every people in the world. It is not; and the attempt to impose it has ended in disaster for Europe. If the system that has grown up in Britain is the right one for us — and we will do the best we can to work it and make it better —it is not, in consequence, necessarily the right government for every people. I hope that when the shadow is lifted from the world, if it may be. that we may always remember that lesson and not try to force on other countries what has been good for us but may not be good for them.”