GENERAL SMUTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 May 1943, Page 3

GENERAL SMUTS

REPLY TO BIRTHDAY GREETINGS FAITH IN THE' BRITISH EMPIRE. ANIMATED BY GENIUS OF FREEDOM. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, May 24. Today, Empire Day, is also General Smuts's 73rd birthday. According to a Cape Town message, General Smuts received thousands of messages of congratulations from all over the world. Acknowledging the cheers of a crowd in Johannesburg, the general said he hoped this May 24 would be a milestone to the great group of nations forming the British Commonwealth, which had been tested as never before, and stood up to the test. But for the British Commonwealth, everything might have been lost, and we should have entered another dark age, with all good things blotted from the earth.

In a special Empire Day message, General Smuts said the conception of the British Empire was based on the principles of freedom, goodwill and cooperation operating within a wide human group for the development of civilised ways of life, incompatible with the enemy's conception which was based on domination, oppression and exploitation. Because we believed in the British principles which were endorsed by a vast number of enlightened people in the world, we challenged those who would have reverted to the worn-out creeds and practices of ancient barbarism. Our challenge rallied round us comrades sharing the faith of freedom and the inspiration of united effort based on free co-operation. As visions of victory opened before us and we saw the tasks of reconstruction lying ahead, we could take courage from what had been achieved, and inspiration from the genius of freedom which animated the British Empire. In the years ahead, this great system of free human organisation would have a beneficient influence far beyond our own widespread boundaries, and would make a large contribution to the solution of the great problem of human government.