FUTURE OF EMPIRE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 March 1939, Page 3

FUTURE OF EMPIRE

CHALLENGE TO TRADITIONAL BELIEFS.

A challenge to traditional beliefs about the British Commonwealth is discussed by Lord Lothian in an article on “The Future of the Empire,” published in the “Spectator.” “It is that liberty has been carried so ;far,” he states, “that a balancing movement, on the one hand stressing the obligation to service on all citizens, and on the other requiring unity or integration between the autonomous nations, is imperative, if liberty. its.elf an.d democracy are to survive. It is now quite clear that it is impossible for Europe to reach either prosperity or stable peace so long as it is divided into 25 sovereign States, each with an arjny. an air force, an insurmountable tariff and a foreign policy of its own. National autonomy is sound enough, bur it must be balanced by some form of unity or federation, if Europe is not to be utterly destroyed by anarchy. Again, what future is there for the British Commonwealth if, in addition to Canada, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand, India, Ceylon, Burma, Newfound, Jamaica, Trinidad, Nigeria. Kenya, Tanganyika and a dozen other territories all attain to full Dominion status and are entitled to foreign policies, armies and air forces, and high tariffs of their own? The Commonwealth will then have become an anarchy of 20 to 30 sovereignties only united by allegiance to a non-politica'l Throne. Indeed, it is possible to go further and ask whether it is not certain, in this age of aerial navigatiqn and radio, that so long as the world as a whole remains divided into more than 70 sovereign States it will pay the price in chronic poverty, revolution and war.”