WARDEN OF DEMOCRACY

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 103, 28 October 1933, Page 9

WARDEN OF DEMOCRACY

'MST HOPE OF LIBERTY

PLACE IN WORLD POLITICS

BROADCAST BY MR. THOMAS

(British Official Wireless.) , RUGBY, October 26. U'uring a broadcast address tomglvt upon "The Empire in World ' Politics," the Secretary for the Dominions (Mr. J. 11. Thomas) said:— "Tho cause of peaceful co-operation between nations has just received a slronjr blow. It is not a knock-out. The M'orld can and will recover from ; it. How best can we help towards this recovery? World-wide co-opera-tion is for the moment in great difficulties, but there is in the world a . group of nations and peoples—the British Empire—covering between ' them rfl'ore than a quarter of the earth's s'.urface and including nearly a quarter of the human race, in which ' co-operalion has not only not failed but is living and growing. ■ ' "Relations between other nations, and peop.les are based fundamentally on a deaixe to avoid war. It is to that aim that almost the whole of their foreign policy is directed. It was with tihat object that the League of Nations was created. The acts of their Govejrnments are wise or foolish, as they diminish or increase dangers of ■war. •' The Governments of , .the British Empire, on the contrary, start from the assumption that war between them is inconceivable. Wo begin where i others leave off. Wo can. direct our ' energies to tihe positive end of achiev- , ing good, anal not merely to the noga- • tive end of avoiding evil. And as a 1 result we can. afford, not merely in our 1 relations with one another, but in our 1 relations with, the rest of tho world, to seek other than purely selfish enda. POSITIVE CO-OPERATION. "The origin of this positive co-opera-tion is the inherent love of personal liberty and j.clf-govemraent in tlie races which nuake up the Empire. It is no mere chance that at a time when democratic government is rapidly disappearing elsewhere, within the British Empire it was never more firmly rooted than it ife today. " Dictatorships necessarily look mii wards. A nation which has yielded up its liberty muf.V, lie kept drugged, and ' the easiest drug: of all to administer is 1 a strong dose «of selfish national coni ceit. Democracy labours under no , such necessity."" • Mr. Thomas expressed the belief ,■ that Imperial ■co-operation explained tho fact that relatively to tho rest of tho world the Bvitish Commonwealth had suffered lass during tho world . economic crisis than had other nations. , There wore real and hopeful signs that ' tho worst was piist, and nowhere- were those signs moro noticeable than in tho British Empire. EXTENSION- OF PRINCIPLE. Ho cited tho improvement in employment and in trade, which hud taken place in Britain and in the Dominions, and referred to the extension of the principle iof co-operation in the cases of the ree«ent wheat agreement and tho declaration of the • monetary ' and economic policy. He said ho Dolieved theso wouUl lead, to other similar measures by which the hopeless lack of co-ordination between producer ■ and consumer, which moro than any 'other factor had brought the world to ' tho verge of ruin, might be regulated . and controlled.