MR AMERY ON TOUR

Hokitika Guardian, 17 October 1927, Page 3

MR AMERY ON TOUR

HON AMERY AT PERTH (Australian & N.Z. Cable Association.) PERTH, Oct. 17. Responding to a civic welcome, Hon Ain cry said the British Empire to-day was based on free co-operation. They had learned how they could not only make good lessons, but build up a greater prosperity and a greater future for their own day, and for their children’s time by working together, which was a lesson that mattered most in tho year’s ahead. Each of them had their own difficulties but by working together they coukl help with each other’s difficulties, and increase each other’s opportunities. That was really the meaning of that partnership, that brotherhood which they called the British Empire. Tho British Empire could succeed only in one way and that would he, if those responsible for the Government of the Empire took an interest in the Empire, and every opportunity of meeting others from different parts of the Empire who wore engaged in the same work. It was only when they met face to face that they became really conscious of their own common unity and the smallness of the differences which at first, seemed such formidable obstacles to unity and co-operation.

Referring at the Parliamentary luncheon to last year’s Imperial Conference, Hon Amery said in one sense that Conference produced no results which could not have been foreseen by the trend of British freedom, but it made the situation clear, not only to the Empire but to the whole world. The Empire was based not on any subordination to a central authority but on full co-ordination, on the basis of a recognition of common interests, common beliefs and common faith in the future.

The Dominions were more than mere independent nations. There were mcalled independent nations in Europe, but they were Imperial nations. For Australia it was her Empire just as much as it was Britain’s. For her, it was an enlargement of opportunities in the achievement of a natural life, and an increase in status and moral responsibility. It was the partnership of co-operation in freedom but a freedom of common interests and common aims. This freedom was a birthright of unity, and was the moral law which directed that freedom.