BRITAIN AND EMPIRE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 57, 4 September 1943, Page 7

BRITAIN AND EMPIRE

FUTURE OF GOVERNMENT

Rec. 11.30 a.m.

RUGBY, Sept. 3

"I think this experience of common clanger has served to knit even closer the ties which bind us to the Dominions in the Pacific area," said the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr. C. R. Attlee, in a speech on the anniversary of the outbreak of war,, in which he mentioned the imminent danger to Australia and New Zealand which the Japanese entry into the war had brought. "I also have abundant evidence of the way in which the inhabitants of the islands of Oceania have stood firm and rendered splendid service against the Japanese invaders."

If you reviewed the British Commonwealth and Empire you would find that progress towards complete selfgovernment within it was dependent on either homogeneity of the population, as in Australia, or the ability of different races to live together without much friction, as in Canada, and that the greatest obstacle to full self-govern-ment was found, not in the unwillingness of Britain to part with- the right of deciding other people's affairs,-but in the ability of the communities to settle their own differences, he said.

The whole history of the Commonwealth and the Empire showed that process of development. "It may well be that the tremendous advances in air travel which we are now seeing may lead to developments in co-opera-tion which we cannot foresee. But we have already found what a great advantage it is to be able to have visits from the statesmen, officials, and chiefs from the Dominions to this country and from Britain to the Dominions." VARIED SYSTEMS. People were inclined to draw a hard and fast line between the Dominions and the rest of the Empire and think of one category as completely selfgoverning and of the other as wholly governed from Whitehall, he said. "There is a very wide range of difference between the various colonies and dependencies. There is no one sealed pattern of democracy. "Institutions must be adapted to the genius of the people who nave to use them and the conditions of the particular countries." Making a comparison between Germany and the Empire, Mr. Attlee said: "The German may think he is a superman and despise the negro in a British colony, but the negro is a freer citizen. .If the German is oppressed by a gauleiter there is no one to raise a voice on his behalf, but if the African feels he is unjustly treated he may be sure a letter to an M.P. will bring his case before the House of Commons."

Mr. Attlee, in conclusion, said it was our duty to see that the freedom we won for ourselves was extended throughout the Empire. But. political freedom was not enough. We had learned that men may be politically free but economically in chains. We had to pursue a positive policy of raising the standard of life throughout the Empire.—B.O.W.