Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1938. OUR TEMPORARY EMPIRE.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 December 1938, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1938. OUR TEMPORARY EMPIRE.

JT is a little hard on. celebrities who are expected to talk as

as they move about the world that their observations, served up as news, are apt to be reduced to a certain, crudity. For example, Mr IL G. Wells, who has a host of respectful and appreciative readers in this country and in all other parts of the English-speaking world, is reported to have confessed to an interviewer, when he arrived at Fremantle the other day, that he was “rather radical” in that he believed that the unity of the English-speaking peoples was more important than the British Empire to the world and to ourselves.

“The British Empire (he said as he is reported) is a temporary political arrangement. The reality is that there are 400 million people who read, understand and think in Rirglish.” Mr Wells said also that he believed the English-speaking peoples could make a plan for the world with improved understanding and co-opera-tion.

There need be no quarrel with this on any other ground than that of a rather free and sweeping use of the, word “reality.” The unity of the English-speaking people, ■if it existed, undoubtedly would be a much greater reality than the British Empire, but at present it exists, at best potentially, while the Empire has a real existence as a practical working organisation, by no means perfect, but serving a useful and valuable purpose as a means, it may be hoped, of approaching the greater and nobler developments that the future.may have in store.

In a philosophical outlook there need be no difficulty about admitting, and indeed affirming, that a federated union of the English-speaking peoples, in working operation, would be something greater and finer than the British Empire. It is the experience of mankind, nowhere better exemplified, perhaps, than in the growth and expansion of the British Empire, that the genuine extension and enlargement of human associations implies and ensures the improvement of the social order and the intellectual and-moral development of man.

It may .be more reasonable, however, to regard existing political entities like the British Empire, the United States.and others as elements in an evolving world order than to class any of them as temporary and unsatisfactory expedients which ought to be east aside in favour of something better. In affirming the need for “controls and authorities of a greater range and greater comprehensiveness than any government that has hitherto existed,” Mr Wells has himself .said fin “A Short History of the World”): — ’ •

The drift of thought seems now to be in the direction of a number of special committees or organisations, with world-wide powers, delegated to them by existing governments in this group of matters or that, bodies concerned with the waste or development of natural wealth, with the equalisation of labour conditions, with world peace, with currency, populatioii and health, and so forth.

The world may discover that all its common interests are being managed as one concern, while it still fails to realise that a world governments exists ...

A good many people at present may think that Mr Wells is unduly optimistic in his estimate of prospects. The ascendancy gained in their own countries and the influence exercised abroad by egotistical monomaniacs like Hitler and Mussolini rather obviously suggest that the world is in danger of being thrown back into barbarism instead .of moving into a superior plane of political and social organisation.

With the die yet to be cast, it may be claimed that the British Empire, which Mr Wells has called a temporary political expedient, is definitely pioneering the way to a better political order for all mankind. Undoubtedly the Englishspeaking peoples, united to that end, could offer the world a, far more effective lead, but the principal obstacle to the attainment of that union is the isolationist sentiment—file fear of external entanglements—which still largely dominates the outlook of the people of the United States. Lord Hugh Cecil wrote on this subject recently:— America, like the Priest and Levite, passes by on the other side, while the peace-loving part of Europe has fallen among thieves. If America would join - with the British Empire, with France and with the smaller' nations, it would be possible so to control commodities that a law-breaking nation could not make war, but must submit to reason. On these lines an approach undoubtedly might, be made to the happy state of affairs Mr Wells has envisaged. On account, however, chiefly of American isolationism, the unity of the English-speaking peoples is still far from being, as Mr Wells is said to have declared it to be, “much more important, than the British Empire to the world and Io ourselves.” As yet that very desirable unity is only a dream, which may or may not. ultimately be realised.