PROBLEMS OF EMPIRE

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 265, 5 August 1919, Page 7

PROBLEMS OF EMPIRE

ADDRESS . BY VISCOUNT MILNER

"PAX MUNDI" AND "PAX

BRITANNICA"

By Telesrauh-Preßs Association-Copyright London, August 2. Viscount Miiner delivered an address on the problems of the Empire at a 6u'inmer meeting of eight hundred students, including Australian and NewZealand soldiers. He, said that although the war wnas a.source of great encouragement to Imperialists at Home, a setback in Imperial politics must be expected for a time. Immense strides had recently been made ill organising the co-operation of self-governing States and the Commonwealth, but these great institutes, were now in abeyance. The Dominion statesmen, whoso participation in the war had been invaluable, had gone back immersed in locaL affairs, liko tho British leaders., They were not troubling ii'ijout th'e instrument of future Imperial co-operation. . Overburdened Ministers, distracted legislatures, and a hectic Press were not ready to apply fundamental lirainwork to the solution of the Imperial problem. Some fear was expressed that the League of. Nations would tend to the disruption of tho Dominions and the Mother .Country. Ho. did not share that fear; lnit irreparable disaster would follow if in stretching out for tho Pax llundi wo let slip the Pax Britamiica, which was a long-assured and well-tested possession. That would ba sacrificing the substance for tho shadow. Thd people of tho Dominions must learn more regarding their obligations as members of a world-en-circling society of nations. Tho United Kingdom alona carried the burden of its vast dependent Empire. In . tho future development of the Commonwealth there was bound to be a closer connection than at present between the self-governing and dependent parts of the Empire.—AusN.Z. Cable Assn.