Britain’s Part in the Progress of the World

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 126, 25 February 1928, Page 17

Britain’s Part in the Progress of the World

- ...HE first of the Stevenson Lectures on Citizenship for the season 'g was delivered in Glasgow University by Mr. C. Delisle Burns, | D.Litt., University Lecturer in Citizenship. The subject of 1 the course was “British Citizenship and its Responsibilities Outside Great Britain.” In his opening lecture, reported in the “Glasgow Herald,” Mr. Burns said:— “In the modern world citizenship must be citizenship of the world. It could not help being so. “Before the war there were, in the world of international affairs, great Powers and small States. But Europe had been dwarfed and the empires were gone. Aeroplanes and wireless had really shrunk the world, and had drawn together our relationships with foreign countries in a way that seemed impossible in 1914. We were part of Europe in a way we never were before. “Before the war Europe was rather above the level of the rest of the world in general culture, standard of living, and population. It was not so now. Europe no longer led the world. Up till 1914 the rest of the world looked to Europe for its industrial needs, but now it provided its own, and that was the reason for the unemployment in industrial countries and the distress in Britain. Austria had gone, and nobody

knew how far Russa’s or Germany’s influence actually weighed with the other nations or what its weight was. “We were also doubtful as to the relation between the different States. The classification had become obscure. The small States were not going to lie down to the great Powers. They said that if peace was .to be the policy of the world and not war they had as much to contribute as any. They were perfectly conscious that the w-oild could not get on without them. That meant that ths situation had been transformed by causes which we did not control. “But at the same time Great Britain was one of the groupwhich had a certain weight and influence with the fate of other nations. If Britain moved the rest of the world moved. Another change whicn had occurred was that one thing that had survived the war was democracy. “It was much decried and much criticised; people shrugged thenshoulders and said it would not work. At any rate it survived. Wc desired a world a little better than it was, and democracy must make its weight felt. But how? He did not think by large movements over vast populations, but by the deliberate thought and action of small groups. Small groups could do great things if they worked in the faith that the world might be better by their actions in every-day life.”