ENGLAND TO-DAY.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 10 December 1925, Page 4

ENGLAND TO-DAY.

If the heart of an organism is diseased, ail its component parts arc endangered, and for (this reason alone, quite apart from sympathetic interest, the condition of England must always he of vital consequence to New Zealand. For England is the heart of the Empire, and New Zealand must lean on her to a great extent whenever she wants money for internal development, nj,val force for the protection of her coasts, and men to populate a dominion. Now .that the dominions are passing from daughterhood to sisterhood, and arc beginning to insist on the claims of their new status, inter-imperial relations will require much tact and forbearance on all sides till a new conception of the Empire ,embodying fresh traditions, can. be evolved to take the place of the old. During this period of change the solidarity of the Empire will depend to a verv large degree on the ability of the. component parts to understand the position, and appreciate the difficulties of one another. The greatest danger in •the Empire to-day is the lack of opportunity afforded to the' general public, in England and in the dominions, of understanding the difficulties with which each are beset. England to-day is in the throes of three separate ifhough converging crises, and her ability to cope with tho.se- three great, national trials —trials which in the l -past, and when they have come singly, have wrecked great Empires —is of urgent moment not only to the Empire but to the whole world. These three great crises in English life can roughly be differentiated as social, economic and political, or Imperial. Each one has indeed been rendered inevitable by the policy which England pursued throughout the 19th century, but what, in the natural course of events, would _ have been gradual, has been precipitated by the war into converging crises. Whether England can weather this triple etorm must, depend upon her ability to reorganise all three spheres of her existence her social, economic and political life and thought —and to do this without destroying the. old foundations which are sunk too deep in the English character lo be uprooted with any other consequence than irretrievable disaster.