Waihi Telegraph WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE WAIHI MINER THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1929. PERSONAL CONTACT

Waihi Daily Telegraph, Volume XXVI, Issue 7901, 12 September 1929, Page 2

Waihi Telegraph WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE WAIHI MINER

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1929. PERSONAL CONTACT

Hero at»ll tn« Pre«a foopiw 0 .-tight Unawed by influenceHnd unhrib*d by gain . H>te Patriot Tr»itb her glorimie precept* dv*w. Pledged to Rnliarinn I.ibert* und Lnw

At the opening of the tenth session of the League of Nations Mr MacDonald remarked that “Geneva has superseded written negotiations by personal contact.” That is to say, the greater the machine of Government, the wider its scope, the more the direct, personal factor counts. When man’s ambition to control, rising from the national sphere into internationalism, evolved the League of Nations, something bigger than a constitution "Was accomplished, for leaders previously separated by political boundaries, and rarely meeting, were compelled to commingle regularly. And while the League of Nations has been reducing political barriers science has been reducing those of distance, so that for the first time in history a British Minister in Britain and a Dominion Prime Minister in Australia have, talked together as if they were -in adjoining rooms. Although a telephone conversation is not full personal contact, dialogue of this character is nevertheless a distinct advance upon the “written negotiations” to which Mr MacDonald refers; and the 13,000 miles ten miniates’ talk between Mr Bruce and Lord Passfield (Secretary for the Dominions) is a landmark in the delicate task pf governing an Empire that is more farTllung, geographically speaking, than all the countries of Europe, Personal contact in tlie affairs of the Empire, as of the League, is vital, and personality is not swallowed up in the sheer immensity of the task. Just think of the new Snowden that has been created by the epic duel of The Hague. His body may need at times a bath-chair, but the greatness of the mind of the man is emphasised thereby. He used to belong to the Labour Party. He belongs now to the Empire.