THE NEW EMPIRE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 97, 15 December 1931, Page 4

THE NEW EMPIRE

If any reliance can be placed upon present indications, one of the most lasting and beneficial results likely to foTow G"sa' Eritain's recent whole-hearted acceptance of the National Government will be the awakening of the Empire (or as it is fast becoming more usual to call it, the British Commonwealth) as a whole to a realisation of its own power- And just as the Empire is being given a new and perhaps more fitting name, so is the term power acquiring a new and much more desirable meahing. Until now the word has connated in men's minds, ships and guns and organisation for war. There now appears to be an excellent prospect of its coming t-o mean economic unity and organisation for peace. In every British country men's minds are turned toward the development of an economic empire, encouraged by the new willingness of the statesmen and public of Great Britain to consider seriously the possibility of its creation. The passing of the Statute of Westminster, the effeet of which has been to raise the great Dominions from the status of daughter states to that of sister nations of the Motherland, has convinced even the die-hard upholder of things as they are that a change of major importance has come about in the constitution of the Empire and that if it is to svirvive, even perhaps in name — and that a new one — steps must immediately be taken to thaf end along lines indicated by the new conditions. This does not imply* that there is, or is likely to be any weakening in loyalty to the British Crown, which has become pre-eminently the tie which binds the British Commonwealth. We believe that in every British country all sections of the people and all political parties, except a noisy b.ut impo.tent section to whom loyalty of any kind is an impossibility, remain firm in their affection for and loyalty to his Majesty and his- House both personally and as the visible expression and rallying points, as it were, of the British ideal of nationhood. But as the Canadian Prime Minister, Mr. R. B. Bennett, has pointed out, the Statute of Westminster has ended technically, and finally, the old pol|tical Empire in which the Parliament of Westminster was the supreme power. Under the Statute the Dominion Parliaments have acquired the final enlargement of their sovereign status within a free commonwealth and this abrogation by the Mother Parliament of its legal sanctions has directed attention throughout the Empire to the desir-ahility pf creating or strengthening other, and perhaps more binding and more lasting ties to take their place. In these circumstances the supreme importance, to the whole nation, politically, as well as economically, of the success of the Imperial Economic Conference to be held in Ottawa next year is obvious. The evident anxiety of the lead.ing British and Dominion statesmen to prepare well the ground and thus pave the way to success is a good augury, indicating as it does their deep realisation pf the vital importance of the outcome. British people throughout the world are therefore just'ified in looking forward to. the. birth at Ottawa" of a new era of prOgfess and prosperity based not upon arms, or law, or any of the old ideas connated by the term Imperial power, but upon a new realisation of the living power of co-operation, comm unity of interest and service to the common ideal, of freedom for the citizen to pursue his peaceful avocation secure in the enjoyment of the friiits of his labour.