COMMONWEALTH IDEAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 August 1922, Page 5

COMMONWEALTH IDEAL.

BARRIERS TO WORLD UNITY. SEPARATE IDENTITY OF NATIONS. By Telegraph.—Press Assn. —Copyright. Received August 27, 5.5 pjn. New York, Aug. 26. Mr. Philip Kerr (secretary to the British Prime Minister), addressing lnstitute of Politics at Williamstown, said the British Commonwealth cannot last indefinitely in its present form, and it will be replaced by greater things if the world is to progress towards unity and peace. “Somebody has suggested that I wish the United States would join the British Commonwealth,” he added. “I do not. If it did, a nation of 110 millions would simply swallow one of 40 millions. The great national cultures of France, Italy, Britain, the United States, Germany, Russia and Japan differ profoundly, and you cannot get them to merge their national identities in a vague cosmopolitan patriotism. “There is no possibility —and there ought not to be—of creating a world nation on the model of any national State now existing. The Federal Government and Congress under the American system can give no orders to an individual State, as each is independent in its own sphere. Here, it seems to me. is the key of the whole prob-—AUl.-N.Z. Qable Ana.