AN OBJECT-LESSON

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 22, 10 February 1937, Page 4

AN OBJECT-LESSON

"The British Commonwealth has been neatly described by Mr J. A. Spender as (a League of Nations without sanctions.' The absence of prescribed sanctions is a sign of the reality and constancy of the will to co-operate. This co-operation is ensured not so much by the existence of a common political system as by the speeial character of that system. It is a system in which government is conceived as a means not toward increasing the power of the State, but toward providing a fuller and better life for the people, Thus betwees. the members of the Commonwealth there is no eompetition for power. "And the same is true — though it has not always been so — in the xelations between Great Britain and the United States. It is also, broadly speaking, true of *he relations between our country and the other constitntional democracies in Europe, notably France. Thus an afflnity of political ideas, reinforced by the impulsion of economic foroes, is bringing into existence a collaboration — bloo would he too precise a term — of eo-operatively minded States whose policies, dictated by enlightened self-interest, are conceived in in.clusive rather than exelusive terms. In this way they provide both an object-lesson and an oppOrtunity for other States, who are free to join in tl^p collaboration if they feel disposed to accept the common co-operative outlook and scheme."- — Sir Alfred Zimmern.