MR AMERY'S TOUR

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19161, 18 November 1927, Page 13

MR AMERY'S TOUR

AROUND AUSTRALIA. NEW VISION OF EMPIRE. (raou oujl own coanEspoxDEjrr.) SYDNEY, November 11. A Sydney newspaper cartoon pictured the tour of Australia by the British Secretary of State for the Dominions (Mr L. S. Ainery) as a hurried gallop round a small paddock, whoße fence posts were tho capital cities. In truth, Mr Amery has spent a very hurried and breathless few weeks since he landed at Albany. He has spent most of his time in the capital cities, naturally, since his principal mission is to confer with the various governmental authorities, but he has grasped many opportunties of seeing the real Australia and its chief developmental works. Just now he is in Queensland, and next week ho will return to this city before leaving by the Niagara for New Zealand. New Zcalanders will get to know this very busy little statesman quickly, and to admire and like him. A short, compact man, Mr Amery has a thin, compassionate mouth and witty eyes that "miss nothing. Ho is without doubt one of the most cultured and eloquent orators that has visited the new lands of tho south. He has the Oxford manner and the Oxford accent —tho charming one, not tho exaggerated one. His only mannerism is to clench his firsts tightly as he rises to heights 6f sheer poetry of expression in perfect English. But he does not smash the table like some of the more fervid of our Australian orators. He speaks in conversational tone, but every word is a gem of enunciation. This was tho man a distinguished company of Sydney residents entertained at a .State banquet last Saturday night. Plain Mr Amery must have felt awed as the Premier (Mr Bavin) escorted him to his seat at the table. No fewer than 30 knights, all-displaying numerous Orders, were among the 300 guests. That was not all. There were so many "honourables" that plebeian "misters" seemed to shrink into their seats and tried to hido behind their serviettes.

In his speech at the banquet, Mr Amery referred to Australia's part in the war, an experience that. was not Australians alone. If she had stood the ordeal of lire and emerged victorious by sacrifice, so had each of her sister Dominions. So too had that little Old Country in the North Sea that ho thought they all still sometimes called Home. Some had said of her that her pulses had come to beat sluggishly, and that there was no groat cause for which she was capable of making an effort as in the great days of old; but the war had proved that the great days of old were no greater than the days of now—that no sacrifice, no effort, that Britain ever made was equal to the effort sho put out in that great struggle. Tho whole Empire had its new birth in those years of trial and of purification. It was that new birth which was reflected in the results of the Imperial Conference. Those resolutions were, on the part of Britain, a free and willing tribute paid to what the Dominions had achieved, to what they had become—full-grown nations. On the part of the Dominions it was not only the claiming of their right to be regarded as of age, but an acceptance of the responsibility which came with' that manhood, a recognition' of that joint and several trusteeship in the British Empire, which was once regarded as being Britain's alone, but which was now common to all. With that new status and new recognition of equal freedom had come recognition equally clear of their duty and interest in co-operation.

One of Mr Amery's most popular allusions was inspired by a reference to Mr Bavin, the Premier, to the "impatience of outside control in our domestic affairs expressed more than 60 years ago by a New Zealander, who said that he would rather be governed by a Nero on the spot than a committee of archangels in Downing Street." "But what of the archangels," asked Mr Amery, "who come in your midst? I do not know where the comparison would stand, but I have heard it whispered, perhaps I have read it in the columns of your newspapers, that tho archangel of Downing Street might, in certain conjunctions, be more useful than the Nero of Macquarie street" (the site of the State Parliament House). "In this case the archangel will leave the poor Christians to Nero."

Turning to the economic side of Empire development, Mr Amery said that they had come to realise that co-opera-tion in the fruitful work of economic development might be even more valuable than it was on tho great field of war. Even before the war Australia gave proof of her desire to co-opc.rato in the field of trade, and had given increasing proof of that desire ever since. There were many long years in which Britain refused to listen, when she declared that there were . theories more precious to her than any conception of Imperial unity. "Believe me," added Mr Amery, "we have changed and are changing greatly in Britain."

Continuing, Mr Amery said that Britain by preference duties and by grants for publicity, research, and organisation of trade, had shown that she was prepared to co-operate with Australia in peopling this country. This was not to solve her unemployment problem. The gain they looked for was that Australia's prosperity was Britain's prosperity. It was from that point of view that they wished to co-operate to cooperate along frank, fruitful lines, not ignoring difficulties, not forgetting the complexity of the problem, realising that it was no mere handling of goods they were concerned with, but with the breaking up of homes, the lives and fortunes of individual men and women, yet believing that by working together, they could do something that would offer greater happiness to thousands of individuals who would help Australia to solve many of her jwn most urgent problems, and at the same time contribute to the happiness, prosperity, and strength of the Mother Country.

Mr Amery said that in these matters there was growing up in the Empire a new vision of the enormous possibilities before them if they would only poof their resources and use their economic strength to the best advantage. That vision was becoming increasingly present in Britain. Tfic British were slow people to move, but when they did move, they moved with sure purpose and determination that rarely ceased until the thing was achieved.' If they believed in economic co-operation, and co-operatiori for defence, they did not believe in them for themselves alone. The Empire was a commonwealth for security and increase, but it was also a commonwealth of the spirit; a partnership in the uplifting of man towards higher ideals and finer purposes. Britain was learning to-day how to solve the problem of helping the weak without weakening the energy and impelling spirit of the individual. In a wider spirit, it was trying to solve the problem of how to make use for the world at large of the vast resources of tho territories that had been committed to its charge, how to assist weaker and more backward nations.