Evening Post. TUESDAY, MAY 25, 1926. THE HEART OF THE EMPIRE

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 123, 25 May 1926, Page 6

Evening Post. TUESDAY, MAY 25, 1926. THE HEART OF THE EMPIRE

The Empire means as much for New Zealand as it ever did, ; but unfortunately Empire Day means very little, and now that almost a whole generation has passed since the death of Queen Victoria a considerable proportion of our people must be quite in the dark as to why the 24th May is so called. Wellington honoured the anniversary in a perfunctory fashion with the firing of a salute and the display of a few flags, but the messages from London really provided a worthier celebration than ahy local effort. Even our own Prime Minister's deliverances on tho subject must be included, under the former of these heads, for they were written' for the Empire Day issues of "The Times" and other London papers, and are not primarily to be treated as local news any more than the similar message of the British Prime Minister. Yet even as a stimulus to local patriotism Mr. Baldwin's message is highly effective. Mr. Coates had to talk Imperialism in the abstract —a task which is always' difficult for the talker and rarely inspiring for his audience. Mr. Baldwin, on the contrary, had a text to his hand which even a much plainer man than he could not have altogether deprived of interest and inspiration. Three weeks ago the nation was fighting for its life, and the Empire whose life had. also been in peril was thankful to hear a few words upon the subject from the man who carried the nation and the Empire safely through. When the British Labour leaders sought to enforce the miners' demands by the threat of a general strike, they completely changed the issue. The industrial anH economic importance of the struggle was completely superseded by its constitutional aspect. The calling of a general strike was so obviously a declaration of war on the State that, if the Government wont wrong at all, it was in not insisting upon the immediate withdrawal of the notico instead of continuing negotiations until "overt acts, "apparently not sheeted home to the, leaders, had aggravated the challenge. But: the. delay brought at least these advantages, that it relieved I;he Government from any charge of impatience, and showed that it had moved with reluctance to the defence of constitutional authority against an irresponsible dictatorship. It is to this aspect of the problem that Mr. Baldwin , quite properly confines himself in a message addressed to tho Empire at large. We, tho Mother Country, he says, have emerged from the shadow of a national crisis, and . come back to light, because the people and nation united to resist forces which set themselves to destroy the sacred edifice of the Constitution. Our people d not merely fight for the cause of Britain; they fought for the whole Empire, because once the heart had become rotten and corrupt the whole being must inevitably have crumbled. It was, indeed, the battle of the whole Empire against lawless violence that Britain was fighting, and the whole Empire is heavily indebted to her people and the Government for winning so decisive a. victory over a common foe that a danger which had threatened all of us from time to time will no longer be the nightmare that it occasionally was before. To the seamen whose loyalty kept the sea-ways open a special debt of gratitude is due from the Dominions. According to M. Zinovieff, "the general strike was a mere rehearsal under very bad directors." From his point of view tho strike managers would, of course, have, been better directors if they had been worse men. It is impossible not to feel some sympathy for the Trades tlnion leaders who were forced, into extreme action by pressure from the Reds, confidently believing, no doubt, that tho consequences which a general strike threatened to the whole country were so terrible that their bluff would never be called. What was almost all-powerful as a threat was bound to collapse if put-to the proof, and they knew it. An impossible fight which found the strike leaders halfhearted at the very outset was a miserable enterprise for responsible men, but tho sympathy which belongs to them on that account must bo changed to derision if they ask us to treat what is described as "Labour's official Press version*" seriously. The strike terminated, according to this "version, because „-' the Trades Union Congress realised that the Government must bo saved from the consequences of its own folly in declaring that the strike was an attack upon Constitutioncl Government. If , the T.U.C. had been as foolishly truculent and obstinate as the Ministers, not only would Sir Herbert Samuel's mediation have failed, but a disastrous extension would have been, inevitable. It may be doubted whether even German camouflage ever contrived any-

thing quite so stupendous as this. We all know, of course, that Germany was not defeated, but she has never asked us to believe that she signed the Armistice because she saw that the Allies "must be saved from the consequences of their own folly and that they were so "foolishly truculent and obstinate" that only her wisdom could prevent their prolonging the war indefinitely. The New Model Army which runs away as soon as its challenge is taken up in order to save its opponents from the consequences of their own folly is a patent which nobody appears to have anticipated. Though a victory over such an army would be nothing to boast of, it was far from a light task that confronted Mr. Baldwin when he accepted the challenge of tha Trades Union Congress. He was facing a contract which no Government had had to face, and there was no means of measuring its extent, its duration, or its consequences. It was because the nation showed itself fully worthy of its leader that a great disaster was made the means of raising the mana of Britain to a higher pitch than it had reached since the Armistice. In his address to the Classical Association, Mr. Baldwin' quoted Dr. Mackail's remark that the Roman Empire collapsed "because there were not enough Romans left to carry on the w.ork of Borne," and he commented as follows :-r- [ There are ' fears among those '• who are responsible for Government today, fears not yet gripping us by the throat, but taking grisly shape in tlie twilight, that the Great War, by the destruction of our best lives in such numbers, has -not left enough of the breed to carry on the work of the' Empire. Our task is hard enough, but it will be accomplished; yet who in Europe does not' know that one more war in the West and the civilisation of the ages will fall with as great a shock as that of Borne? She has left danger signals along the road; it is for us to read them.. ■ , ' The grisly fears of which Mr. Baldwin spoke have less substance than they ;had in January. Britain lias again shown herself equal to the greatest of peace ordeals. Very much in the spirit of Mr. Baldwin, Eruest Myers imagined Imperial Borne addressing this solemn warning to her greater successor— . ' What though thy standard with true title claim A milijer mastery, a nobler name; What though far nations in the shadowing awe Of thy wide rule lie rapt in peace, and law, . Earth-girdling armies shall no whit avail . . ■ j V In thy dark hour, if in thyself thou £ail. Boast not thine arms that stretch so large and long, The heart, the heart—that keep thou pure and strong! Let not the world, let not God mourn once more A giant empire cankered at the core. The. giant- empire is not "cankered at the core." The heart ,of the Empire is not, in Mr. Baldwin's words, "rotten and corrupt." It is as sound and as strong as ever. If the daughter States show -themselves equally worthy, the Empire has nothing to fear.