THE BRITISH EMPIRE

North Otago Times, Volume CVII, Issue 17170, 29 March 1927, Page 7

THE BRITISH EMPIRE

A WiONDERFUL CONGLOMERATION. King George V. of England ctrcps a link of his long title, if the rccommendation of the London Imperial Conference of leading statesmen in Britain's dominions is accepted. King Geox-ge's title is-. "George (Frederiek Ernest Albert) YT, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas, King Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India," _It is suggested that "the TJnited Kingdom" be dropped, -because of the new status of Ireland, outside Ulster. The Irish Free State has taken its jplace in the massive British Empire in a position like that of Canada, so "the United Kingdom" in the title is considered misleading. Wliat is the British Empire? Is the question answered. in the following bulletin from the .Washington, D. C., lieadquarters of the Nationai Geographic Society : — It is more than 125 . separate governmental units. It is a quarter of the land surface of the world. It is a quarter of the population of the world— the estimate is 400,000,000 The British Empire is 58,000,000 of Christians, 94,000,000 of Mohammedans, 208,000, 000 of Hindus and 28,000,000 of pagans and others. Geograplilcally the British Empire is many difi'erent tliings in so many different places , a coral atoll here, a dominion there, a cable station, a mandated district, ward of savage people, or a coaling station — so that it cannot write ilts government in round hard vvofds such as are found in the Constitution of the United States. While it is winter in one-half of the British Empiire, it is summer in the other lialf because the land area is almost equally distributed between the southern and northern hemispheres. This means that the crops of one-half the empire can r'eed the other half while its fields lie dormant under the snow Aliaost everjr kind of soil, every kind of climate and every kind of minorkl are found in the British Empire. England is the empire 's ooal bin, Canada its wlieat clevator, Australia its j parking plant the Malay States the j Empire's rubber iree, South Africa i its gold and dilamond naines, i and so on The " world' s greatest j mountains and thrce of the greatest i rivers, the Nile, the Ganges and ths i Zambesi, are in the Empire. Daniel Webster said of the. Empire . j 'A power which has dotted over the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts, whose morning drum-beat, followmg the sun, and keepihg company with the hours, circles the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England." Let us keep company with the hours and get 24 slices of the British Empire. We will start our instantaneous journey around the world when it is sunrise 5 a. m at Greenwich observatory 0 meridian, jnst outside London lt is also 6 a. m. in the Shetland Islands and at Accra, Capital of Britain's Gold j Coast colony, 3,000 miles south.

j At the same moment it is 7a.m. at i Malta in the Mediterranean, Mani i I Village in the British Cameron man- j . date and at Walvis Bay, South West j ; Africa, which is mandate to the : Union of South Africa. 8 a.m. at Cyprus, at Kerma, near | 1 the i'ourth cataract of tlie Nile in i ■ Anglo-Egyption Sudan, Lake 'Tangan- | ' yika, the city of Salisbury, Rhodesia; ! ' und Pietsrmai-itaburg, Natal Province. j 9 a.m. at Bagdad, Briitish Iraq man- ; ; date, Aden and British Somaliland 8.t | ihe moutli of the Tied Sea and Aldahra- i isiands in the Seychelles. 10 a.m. at Maurikus m the Indian •• Ocean and G v/adar m westemmost i J'ndia ; 11 a.m. at Lahore iki Punjah-, Calicut | in southern Jndia, Audmati 'in the | Maldive Islands and New Amsierdam j Island, a Britisli recl speck iin the •• southern Indian Occan Noon at Calcutta. 1 p.m, at Singapore. 2 p.m at Sandakan, British North Borneo- Condon, Northwest Ahstralia, and Coolgardie, Australia' s' gold difetnct.

3 p.m exists on through . the dry desert of Australia to Port Lincoln. 4 p.m. at New Zealand in the Bismarck Archipelago ; Cloudy Mountain in Papua ; on the Great Barrier Reef of Australia off Mackay; and at Canberra, new eastern Tasmania. 5 p.m. at Nauru, one of the most valuable of Pacific islands for its phosphate dfeposits ; Espirtu Santu in tlie New Hebride, where Britailn and France have joint rule, and Cape ProVidence, easternmost point of New Zealand . 6 p.m. the sun is setting on the British Empire at Vanua Levu of the Fiji Islands, Tonga Islands and Chatham Islands. Since these places are 011 the International Date Line ( they are the first places in the world ! to greet a new day. j 7 p.m. at Danger Island, a tiny atoll. 8 p.m. Caroline Atoll upholds alone j an Empire hour station. , 9 p.m. at the mouth of the Macken- i zie River, Alaska; White Horse, near j the Alaskan Panhandle, and 6,000 \ miles south on the same time line, j Pitcairn Island in the South Pacilic. I 10 p.m. at Mt. llobson and Kam- I loops station on the Canadian pacific j llailroad. 11 p.m. at Regina, Saskatchewan in ' Canada's wheat district. j 12 p.m. midnight at the mouth of j the Nelson Piver, Fort William on I Lake Superior and in British Hon- [ duras, Central America. I 1 a.m. between Ottawa and Mon- j treal and at Kingston, Jamaica. • ; . 2 a.m. (On this time line . British I territory stretches from the Aretic I Circle to the Antarctilc edge) at the | eastern tip of Grant Land, 600 miles i from the North Pole ; at Labrador; at | Sydney, Nova Scotia; down the Atlan- | tic to British Guiana and on down = to the Falkland Islands. I 3 a.m. at the South Ofkneys near 5 the Antarctic Cilrcle.

5 a.m. at Ascension Island in znidAtlantic. 6 a.m. back at Greenwich, where it is still sunriise. We have sliced the world lengthwise 24 times and cut ii-to British Empire red at every slice.