FROM DRAKE TO AMERY

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 313, 26 March 1928, Page 1

FROM DRAKE TO AMERY

ROMANCE OF EMPIRE UNDIMMED SPEECH OF HIGH HOPE By Cable.—Press Association. — Copyright. LONDON, Saturday. I The Secretary of State for the Dominions, Mr. L. S. Amery, and the High Commissioner for Australia. Sir Granville Ryrie were the chief guests at the Press Club’s Dominions night dinner. Mr. Amery said the last Englishman who had made such a trip as his own, though in a reverse direction, was Francis Drake, who brought back a wonderful; story and romance of the prospects which the new world opened up for England. He was not sure that Drake had brought back more romance than he (Mr. Amery) had seen in the last few months on his trip around the world. Each Dominion was much wrapped up in its own history and future destiny. It recognised that it was but a part of the wider destiny of the Empire. His journey had made the end of one period and the beginning of another. It. was the end of the stage of the building-up of selfgovernment of which the climax and the fruit were seen when all the units of the Empire stood together in the Great War. EQUAL FREEDOMThe period of the minority and tutelage of the Dominions had ended. Now they were working as colleagues with equal freedom. Never throughout his tour had he seen or heard anything which suggested that this new freedom was conceived of as the beginning of the disintegration of the Empire, but as a new. more sound, and more enduring basis for co-operation. The last Imperial Conference took a step which was a tremendous act of faith. The progress of the world rested on acts of faith. He believed that in one form or another this act erf faith was justified "or the good and peace of the world, and the advancement of the people of Britain.— A. and N.Z.