BASED ON CO-OPERATION

Taranaki Daily News, 18 October 1927, Page 9

BASED ON CO-OPERATION

PARTNERSHIP OF EMPIRE

PLACE OF THE DOMINIONS MR. AMERY IN AUSTRALIA By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. Perth, Oet. 17. Responding to a civic welcome, Mr. L. C. M. S. Amery said the British Empire to-day was bqsed on free co-operation. They had learned how they could not only make good the lessons of the past, but also build up greater prosperity and a greater future for their own day and for the time of their children, by working together, which was the lesson that mattered most in the years ahead. Each of them had his own difficulties, but ’by working together they could help with each other’s difficulties and increase each other’s opportunities. That was the real meaning of that partnership. that brotherhood which they called the British Empire. The British Empire could succeed only in one way, and that would be if those responsible for the government of the Empire took an interest in the Empire and seized every opportunity of meeting others from different parts of the Empire who engaged in the same work. It was only when they met face to face that' they became really conscious of their own common unity and the smallness -of the differences which at first seemed such formidable obstacles to unity and co-oper-ation.

Referring at the Parliamentary luncheon to last year’s Imperial Conference. Mr. Amery said that in one sense that conference produced no results which could not have been foreseen by the trend of British freedom, but it made the situation clear, not only to the Empire, but to the whole world. The Empire was based not on any subordination to a central authority, but on full coordination, on a basis of recognition of common interests, common beliefs, and a common faith in the future. The Dominions were more than mere independent, nations. There were socalled independent nations in Europe, but they were Imperial nations. For Australia it was her Empire just as much as it was Britain's. For her it was an enlargement of opportunities in the achievement of a natural life and an increase in status and moral responsibilities; it was a partnership of cooperation in freedom, but a freedom of common interests and common aims. Freedom was the birthright and unity was the moral law which directed that freedom. London, Oet. 16. The Observer states: “Since the New South Wales election has shown that Commonwealth ideas have overshadowed State ideas, Australia is ready to hear Air. Amery. It is clear that the Dominion Secretary will become, the Empire’s constitutional clearing house for ideas. From this New Empire organ Labour has most to gain. It is noteworthy that Labour is strongest in the States in Australia, as in (lie county councils in England.”