THE COLONIAL EMPIRE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16338, 12 May 1927, Page 7

THE COLONIAL EMPIRE

A GREAT ORGANISATION MR. AMERY'S ADDRESS (British Official Wireless.) Rec. 10 a.m. LONDON, May 12. At the opening of the Colonial Conference in London, the following message was sent to the King: "At our- first meeting we, the Governors and other representatives of the colonies, protectorates, and mandated territories, desire to express our loyalty and fidelity to the King, and to assure your Majesties of the loyalty and devotion of the many peoples and races throughout the world whom we represent." Addressing the conference, Mr. L. C. M. S. Amery, Secretary, saiU this was the first conference representative of the Governments of tie British Colonial Empire. The conception of the Colonial Empire with an entity of its own as an important constituent element in the wider framework of the British Empire, with characteristics and problems differentiating it on the one hand from the great empire of India, was ono which was only gradually dawning upon tlie mind of the general public, and, indeed, even on the minds of thoso directly connected with the conduct of Imperial affairs. It was a conception which would, he believed, emerge clearer and stronger as a result of the deliberations of the conference. IMMENSE RESOURCES.

Speaking of the immense extent of the resources of the Colonial Empire, Mr. Amery mentioned that undeveloped States comprise over 2,000,000 square miles, with a population of 50,000,000 people, with trade already exceeding b 00,000,000 a year, and doubling itself every few years, but capable of infinitely greater and far more rapid expansion. Its problems, constitutional, economic, and cultural, were endlessly diverse. Under all that almost bewildering diversity lay a large measiire of unity. The, Colonial Empire was almost wholly tropical and sub-tropical, and therefore interested in all the. economic and health problems of the tropics. It populations were mostly non-European, and largely primitive. There was also the community of ideals and purpose animating a devoted and splendid Colonial service, but while there was this large measure of unity in the problems of the Colonial Empire, and in the spirit wherein thev were approached, there was very little agricultural or administrative unity. There were 36 different governments, each entirely separate. This system, with its lack of co-ordination, had certain great advantages. Each Colonial government, and each Colonial service, had grown up on the spot by a continuous process of local evolution from the days of the first historical conncc- j tion with Britain.