OUR LOYALTY

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2345, 22 October 1921, Page 4

OUR LOYALTY

WRECKERS OF EMPIRE.

There had been some doubl, Mr Massey said at Wellington, about the loyalty of the Dominions to the Empire and the Sovereign. A member: “At the Conference?” Mr Massey: “No, not at the Con-

ference.” A member: “Where did it come from?”

Mr. Massey said it was expressed in the papers. It was said openly in London while lie was there that one morning paper in London was receiving Russian gold in order to support the propaganda of the Bolsheviks. He believed it was true. It was also said that a paper was receiving money from the malcontents in Egypt, but he did not know whether that was correct. A member: “What particular part of the Empire was said to be disloyal ”

Mr Massey said that they knew that the Sinn Feiners who were opposed to Britain had been receiving money from other countries, though he did not say that they had received it from the Governments of other countries.

Mr Holland: “Carson received aid from Germany.” Mr Massey: “Sir Edward Carson is as loyal a man as ever stood in shoe leather. I only wish the honourable member was as loyal.” Mr Massey said that there was a world-wide conspiracy to break up

the British Empire, and it was their duty to put down disloyalty wherever they came across it.

Mr Massey quoted the loyal addresses presented to the King by the Conference (cabled at the time), and emphasised that portion of it which referred to the strength of the Sovereign as a link of the Empire. “No changes in our status as people or as governments shall weaken, our common allegiance to the Sovereign and the Empire.”

Mr M’Callum: “The silken thread.”

Mr Massey: “It is very often stronger than iron.” If it had been a silken thread at the time of the American war there would have been no revolution, and if there had been no revolution there would have been no migration of people who were not altogether desirable. The British strain was still strong in America, and he hoped it would remain so, but one could never say what would happen id the years to come.