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RECASTING THE EMPIRE

MR. LONG ON THE LESSONS OX' THE WAR. • Mr. Walter Long, speaking as Secretary for the Colonies at a luncheon at the West India Club, said that in this war our distant possessions had played a part which had won for them eternal honour, which had made its mark upon the conduct of the campaign, and rendered it impossible that the future of the Empire could ba anything at all like what it had been in the past. The fundamental error of the British • Empire had been, in the first place, the inability to realise and recognise its enormous powers, antl the immense addition our distant possessions could make, and would make, if they were given the opportunity to defend the Empire. We were not o"dy unprepared in a military sense, but we were unprepared to take advantage of the almost unlimited possessions which the Empire onjoyed. If there had been a bureau in London provided with this information, our task would have been infinitely easier. And if, in addition, there had been machinery for its utilisation for our immediate uteds, our strength would have been greater, and, ho believed, the duration (if the war would have been shorter. Those were practical lessons which everyone n-ust now have learnt.

AVe were sometimes told that commerce and politics should be separated. He was an old Parliamentary hand and an old party man—and/he had a fain belief in and admiration f or th-3 principles of his party—but ihe moment had come when we must reconsider oiir position. This'war had Drought to us fellow citizens from the most distant part of the Empire, with whom we were in closer community of tho'Jii'it than ever before, and out of this surely something would come which would make the Empire for our children and grandchildren an even possession than it was when it came to us. Those sentiments would, liowsver, lead to nothing unless everyone made up his mind that responsibility for the future lay on him individually, and that lie must throw his whole onergy into the work of re-casting tlie Empire. 1 his would not be done if we relied on political parties. 11l re-casting the Empire th«s need; of our distant posses-suns must he borne in mind. We must remember that- the Empire was a great Empire. _ It was no longer sufficient to talk as if we were a European Power i)iily;_ it was no longer sufficient to think of the balance of powor in Europe; we had got to look at the British Empire spuad all over the world. Wt' must never let ourselves be caught unprepared again; and whether it lie in the West Indies, or in any othc part of the Empire, he hoped that thou.rKfal n.on would i realise that one result of the war mus-t be, if we were 'o maKO proper u.se of our opportunities and advantages, to malie the British Empire more united and more complete self-supporting and capable of preserving the pea-e of the world than it iiad eve; bec-i beforo.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19180205.2.37

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 113, 5 February 1918, Page 6

Word count
Tapeke kupu
510

RECASTING THE EMPIRE Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 113, 5 February 1918, Page 6

RECASTING THE EMPIRE Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 113, 5 February 1918, Page 6

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