IMPERIAL UNITY ADVOCATED BY MR. R. G. MENZIES

Grey River Argus, 10 August 1948, Page 4

IMPERIAL UNITY ADVOCATED BY MR. R. G. MENZIES

Australian Opposition Leader’s Broadcast (Received August 9, 8.40 p.m.) LONDON, August 9. Mr. R. G. Menzies, Leader of the Opposition in the Australian Federal Parliament, who - is making a stay in England, gave a broadcast over the 8.8. C. network. He made an appeal for the closest internal cooperation between th enations of the British Commonwealth and the Empire. He said: “Let ns be one people. Europe concerns Australia: most desperately, but unity is not to be secured by allowing the voice of Britain in all of these present negotiations to be the voice of these islands only. It is not a healthy thing for Europe to permit a peace settlement to become a single conflict between the Soviet and the United States, with British influence relatively a minor thing. But if Britain is to speak with a voice of power, she must, by every process of pre-consultation with British Dominions, be put in a position to speak as one with her sister nations of the Commonwealth and Empire.” Mr. Menzies referred to what he termed a “queer anxiety” which had grown up in recent years to avoid any suggestion of an “Empire bloc,” lest the British Commonwealth countries be accused of “ganging up or of imperialism.” Were we to give up courses and associations and a superb family instinct, which seemed vital, our progress and development of our common assets, because some propagandist said “Yah! Imperialism !” A strengthening of British ties and a rapid development of Empire resources, by closest internal Empire co-operation, should and action. “It was as an Empire come first in our thinking, planning group that we would acquire our greatest immediate value to the wor Id.” Mr. Menzies said that there would be no real international law or security until the sovereignties of the nations were abated in favour of ai world sovereignty. Certainly, this ideal was many years away, but British people could take a step in the right direction, and could set a great example, not by fostering current illusions of independent sovereignties and multiple foreign policies, but “by concentrating upon a reintegration of our various nations so as to produce common development and common aims.”