EMPIRE CLOSELY LINKED.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 5348, 3 February 1916, Page 5

EMPIRE CLOSELY LINKED.

.WHAT THE WAR HAS SHOWN. WELCOME TO MR FISHER. Electric Telegraph—Press Association. Copyright. London, Last Night. The Parliamentary Association gave * luncheon to Air Andrew Fisljer.the new Australian High Commissioner, the House of Commons. Mr Balfoud presided, and Sir 1 horn a s Mackenzie was present. A strong Imperial note was noticeable in the ** > Mr Balfour said previously it had always been a matter of speculation as to whether an Empire so loosely knit together was really capable of landing the stress and strain of a great crisis. There was no conclusive proof before. The South African campaign revealed happy auguries, but the test of the great crisis had not come. It was still open to the cynical prophet to say it was all an illusion, and the unity of the British Empire was merely amiable and agreeable talk appealing to respectable sentiment, but more suited' to fair weather than rough. But now the storm had come in its fullness. Even the most acute prophet never foreaw that almost the whole world: would be actively engaged as now, suffering and spending life and property in a contest unequalled in the world's history. How has the Empire stood the strain and stress? Mr Fisher will tell the experience of one of the great. Dominions. We who have seen and heard what the Australians have done in battle know the value of their contributios to the Imperial cause. (Loud applause). We have heard men who know what fighting is, who hare seen the great conflict on the western front. who know the great struggles of previous wars, say that the world lias never seen, or even conceived of fighting greater than that of the Australians and New Zealanders at Anzac. (Cheers). These immortal memories bring home in unforgettable shape what the unity of Empire really means. I rejoice to think that Mr Fisher is now among us, not as a visitor, but to bring to cur minds and reflections that we live in an age which has proved to all mankind, and before the tribnnal of history that free self-governing Dominions can cherish sentiments of unity which had been supposed only possible under a central form of government. either mosarlhial or republican. (Cheers.) The links of Empire have survived this test, which is the greatest experiment in the development of Empire the world has yet seen. (Loud applause). Loudon, February 1. Air Fisher said that Air Balfour hod remarked that until recently there had existed a grave doubt regarling the position of the overseas Dominions. Prior to the war that doubt was much more in evidence in Britain than in the Dominions. One of the reasons why that existed was because there was a lark of knowledge among Britishers of their own Dominions. The remedy lay in seeing more and more of the great overseas possessions and in meeting people there. He knew no other way in which the safetv and unity of the Empire could he maintained.