The Wanganui Chronicle. THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 1948. THE CHAINS OF EMPIRE

Wanganui Chronicle, 29 January 1948, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 1948. THE CHAINS OF EMPIRE

'T'HE falling away of the chains of the British Empire rejoiced the heart of one member of the House of Representatives during last session of New Zealand’s Parliament. So happy was he at the prospect of the freedom of India that he included reference to this emancipation from the thralldom of Britain in the course of one of his speeches in Parliament. The British withdrawal from India was a wonderful occasion, no doubt, for those who think that the British Empire has been brought into being and maintained for the sole purpose of exploiting the backward races of the world.

The great good that the British Empire has done seems to create no impression on some minds. The good work accomplished in India and Palestine received small advertisement while it was being carried out. True enough the task was stupendous and could not be brought to finality within a few generations. The weight of centuries was opposing change and in each instance the complications were difficult to unravel. It would take a student years to come to an understanding of India’s problems and the same is to be said of the problem in Palestine. Ignorance, therefore, has a fairly free rein in respect to British policy in each of these countries, even when no malice is present to prick it on. To the enthusiast who lives many miles distant, it is a simple matter to advocate that Indians be left to govern themselves. The fact that they never have done so in the past, that the country is riven by the worst of all factions, religious animosities, and the members of these various religions deem it to be their bounden duty to hate each other, can conveniently be left out of account in Wellington or Walthamstow. But not so in Calcutta and Bombay where a pig-and-whistle riot may break out at any moment. It was a subject for scoffing reference that the British kept the peace in India. India was a religious country where there was no prospect of the peace being disturbed. The Indians could settle their own affairs for was not “self government better than good government?” Immediately the British withdrew their forces from the country it behaved true to prognostication. Its rivers have continued to run red with blood. Within the space of a few months an appeal has been made from India for aid from the United Nations Organisation. That aid has yet to be fashioned. It may not be forthcoming. How different would have been the case had Britain continued to carry the much disparaged “white man’s burden”! The troops would have been at the seat of the trouble, the unruly elements would have been put down and by now they would have been voicing their protests against the conduct of the brutal English. Now, poor peasants are being murdered in their thousands without redress and without care, while those who survive are without hope. In Palestine the same drama is to be enacted. The British, tired of playing policeman and being abused for their pains; sick of paying to keep two peoples apart who have neither compassion for nor loyalty to their protectors; the British have laid down the mandate and intend to leave Palestine and its rabble free of the chains of Empire. The cry has already gone forth that the British will have to be replaced by an international force to protect the Jews front the Arabs. Yet it was the kernel of British policy in Palestine to strengthen the Jewish position while not unsettling the Arab population. Now the Jews have pushed the situation too far and that which the British aimed to avoid has been brought into being. When faced it proves to be a terrible reality, the outcome of which cannot be yet seen. But let everyone rejoice, the chains of Empire have fallen from these people. That is the thing which matters more than life and health and peace and security. In India and in Palestine the nebulous United Nations Organisation is being asked to replace the very real British Empire. The British Empire having retired from the role of the world’s first criminal, or the retired burglar now interested in law and order, is still willing to take its place in securing an ordered world in which common people may live their lives "and die a natural death. That British Empire is determined, however, not to be bound by the chains of Empire. It has realised only too well that the chain that binds the slave to the master also binds the master. The analogy, however, is inaccurate. The British Empire made a great bestowing on the peoples that came under its rule. The boon was so well misrepresented that it was regarded by too many as a burden grievous to be borne. Now they are “free” and so is Britain.

But what of those poor people who are trudging along the sun-drenched main trunk roads of India, who go to sleep each night in fear of murder, a fear too often turned into a reality? What of those Jewish boys and girls who are burned and shot and mutilated? What of those Arab people who are slielltorn and who. will bear the marks of their injuries—when they survive —for the rest of their lives? The fires of hate are burning bright in those lands where the chains of Empire have been removed. It is remarkable what it takes to make some hearts rejoice!