TOPICS OF THE TIMES

Southland Times, Issue 21605, 18 January 1932, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE TIMES

A statement in the House of Commons that the term British Commonwealth of Nations is the accurate description of the autonomous Dominions was criticized by Professor A. Berriedale Keith. In a letter to The Times he wrote: “As a matter of fact, the terms British Empire and British Commonwealth of Nations are correctly used in the Irish Treaty of 1921 as synonymous; they have been understood in this sense ever since, and in the agreement of 1931 as to British Commonwealth merchant shipping the term British Commonwealth of Nations is used throughout to include all the territories of the King. The real distinction is one of aspect; when the term British Commonwealth of Nations is employed, it denotes the parts of the Empire as distinct sovereign units, the United Kingdom -with its dependent territories counting as an equal member of the grouping. Thus the Imperial Conference of 1930 proposed a Commonwealth Tribunal which, needless to say, is not a tribunal to decide disputes merely between the dominions but also between the United Kingdom and a Dominion, or India and a Dominion. Hence, too, the Irish Free State styles the Imperial Conference Commonwealth Conference. It would be very unfortunate if it were to be understood that the term has the restricted sense assigned to it by the Solicitor-General, for its adoption was deliberately carried out to stress the equality of the dominions with the United Kingdom, an equality which the Statute of Westminster is intended formally to record.”

Mr John Buchan proposed the principal toast at the dinner given by the Scots in London and south of the Border to Mr Ramsay MacDonald on his birthday. In eulogizing the Prime Minister, Mr Buchan said: "We Scots are a strange folk. We despise incompetence, but we do not greatly admire success. Our sentimental allegiance has usually been given to heroic failures, as if we had an instinct that material and worldly standards were not the true measures of value. Above all things we admire courage—the man who is prepared to take his own course, who is ready to stand out against not his opponents merely, but his friends. We are always happiest when we are acting contra mundum; Athanasius would be perhaps a more fitting patron saint for us than St. Andrew. Years ago our guest showed that kind of fortitude; it makes no difference that the cause for which he then stood was a cause with which few of us here may have sympathized—that does not affect the quality of the courage. He revealed the same fine virtue the other day when he separated himself from the associations of a lifetime. 'The Prime Minister comes of

a famous clan which in Scottish, history was always on the wrong side—by which I mean the right side, the losing side. We should not expect from Clan Donald any undue inclination to play for safety.” Mr Buchan added that Scots especially admired imagination—some tincture of poetry and romance in a man. They might pretend to themselves that their ideal in life was Mr Samuel Budgett, the successful merchant, but they knew in their hearts that they preferred Rob Roy. They were far less interested in Adam Smith than in Robert Burns.