Commonwealth Is A Potent Force

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 16, Issue 28, 4 December 1950, Page 4

Commonwealth Is A Potent Force

The Minister of External Affairs says that if evidence is needed that the British Commonwealth remains one of the most potent forces for advancing human progress it is provided by the Colombo Plan or not, no evidence is required except that already available. Whatever -way you look at Britain and the Commonwealth, the fact remains that no other collection of communities has done so much for so large a portion of the world. Russia, which owns one-sixth of the world, has scarcely scratched the surface of developing the land it owns. Britain and the Commonwealth have given the world all manner of remarkable things, including Parliaments that work, railways, factories, co-opera-tive societies, safety bicycles, tobacco, afternoon tea, athletic sports, aseptic surgery, child welfare work. Boy Scouts, Girl Guides, the jury system, the Salvation Army, highc.ifass tailoring, and Gilbert and Sullivan. Such things as free speech and fair play are taken for granted. They have been incorporated in the systems of many other communities.

What have other communities done to equal this? Germany gave the world beer, music and disciplined knowledge, but it was not enough to save Germany from Hitler. France gave the world “taste,” and the United State's has given the world brilliant mechanical inventiveness; many of her other lines were copies of those in vogue in our own Commonwealth. Even so, the British Empire still remains the biggest business on earth, run by *

the biggest group of countries in the world. Even where population figures are concerned our Commonwealth can boast of 500 million peoples who live in 14 million square miles of land. It is the biggest show on earth. It is going to be bigger. In fact, the British Commonwealth is the only collection of communities that can show the way to a 'Commonwealth of the world not by action, by facts and experience gained the hard way.