UNITY OF EMPIRE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20093, 13 November 1939, Page 7

UNITY OF EMPIRE

VOLUNTARY OFFERS

ASSISTANCE TO'BRITAIN

SHOCK FOR HITLER

RESISTING AGGRESSION

(British Official Wireless.) Reed. 9 a.m. RUGBY, Nov. 11. Manifestations of the unforced cooperation in all parts of the Empire with the effort the Mother Country is making, gives cause for gratification, but not for surprise in Britain and affords a complete answer to HenHitler’s familiar denunciation of the British Empire as a conspiracy to reduce weaker people to servitude under the name of liberty or protection.

In a broad review of the progress of the war in various parts of the Empire—in the colonies no less than in the great self-governing Dominions —The Times says: “That the role, of the Dominions and the colonies is at present auxiliary, rather than primary, is due, not to any subordinate station, but to a geographical accident that places the British Isles in immediate juxtaposition with the evil forces with which all are at war. If Nazi aggression were to show its sinister head in another continent, no doubt one of the Dominions would take the lead in resistance, _ and Britain would secure the rearward positions.

“Day after day the news is always ‘that the subject peoples’ of the Empire offer of their own accord their various contributions to assist the 'exploiter.’ That this should be done in their own right and judgment by free nations, without the aid of the Gestapo or Black Guards, must be an outrage upon the very axioms of Nazi philosophy.

“If Ilerr Hitler should ever read the history of a little earlier date than 1919, he may some day discover that his conception of the Empire as a collection of' enslaved peoples, all fretting to throw off their chains, contains a fallacy that has led other rulers of Germany to their destruction.”