PROBLEMS OF THE EMPIRE.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 16504, 4 August 1919, Page 3

PROBLEMS OF THE EMPIRE.

ADDRESS BY LORD MILNER.By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. (Received August 4, 11.30 a.m.) LONDON, August 2, Lord Milner, in the Sheldouian Theatre, Oxford, delivered his inaugural, address on •‘Problems of the Ejnptte,” at the summer meeting. Eight hundred students, including Australian and New Zealand soldiers wore present. Lord Milner said that, tiiough the war was a source of great encouragement to Imperialists at Home, a sethack to Imperial jjoiitics must bo expected for a time, immense strides had recently been made in organising cooperation amongst the Self-Governing fctates of the Commonwealth, but these great institutions were now In abeyance. The Dominions’statcsmen, whoso participation in the war was invaluable, had gone back to become immersed in local affairs, and, like the British loaders, were not troubling about tho instrument of future imperial co-oper-ation. Overburdened Ministers, distracted legislatures, and the Beetle press wore not ready to apply the fundamental brain work to the solution of the Imperial problem. Some fear had been expressed that the League of Nations would tend towards the disruption of the Dominions and the Mother Country. Lord Milner, said ho did not share the fear, but it would be an irreparable disaster if in stretching out for a pax mundi we let slip the pax Britannica which had long been an assured and well-tested possession. Bv doing this we should bo sacrificing tile substance for the shadow. The peoples of tho Dominions must learn more regarding their obligations as members of a world-encircling society of nations. The United Kingdom alone carried tho burden of the vast dependent Empire. In tho future development of tho Commonwealth there was bound to closer connection than at present between the self-governing and dependent Empire.—Aus.-N.Z. Cablo Assn.