The Waikato Times WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1939 POSSIBILITIES OF EMPIRE

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20986, 13 December 1939, Page 8

The Waikato Times WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1939 POSSIBILITIES OF EMPIRE

With the object of familiarising the British people with the immense possibilities of the Empire, the Colonial Empire Marketing Board has published a comprehensive survey which should serve a very useful purpose. It at once poses the question, “Have the British people made the best possible use of the quarter of the earth’s surface which they rule?” The answ r er is certainly in the negative, and the Marketing Board’s survey should be useful in driving that fact home. If the Empire in the past century had done all that was humanly possible, there would now be no serious menace from a foreign Power; the Empire would have been so strong as to be virtually unchallengable. The overseas Empire embraces a British population of only 60,000,000 and extends over 2,300,000 square miles. The area is ample but the population is woefully inadequate. That is the whole problem. Several of the individual Dominions could have been developed to a stage where they would have almost the population and the strength of the British Isles themselves. Indeed, some of them possess enormously greater potentialities than tiny Britain. Certainly they are young, and certainly they are in their own way robust, but the people have not thriven and multiplied as they should have done. It is one of the strange contradictions of modem times that in lands so greatly favoured the population does not increase as rapidly as in some of the more crowded and less favoured countries. The founders of the Empire dreamed of a whole galaxy of colonies each as prosperous and populous as the Mother Land. That is a dream that some day will be realised, but the progress is too slow and this generation is not fully alive to its responsibilities. With half a dozen free countries, each as strong as the British Isles, scattered over the earth, the British Empire would be unassailable and, it is hoped, worthy of uninterrupted progress. That position is possible of achievement and- will be achieved in time if the true British spirit and the ability to colonise successfully remain with the people. But the danger is still present, and with the determination to defeat the existing enemy there must be a resolution to make the Empire still stronger, and in a shorter space of time. The Colonial Empire Marketing Board is doing good work in awakening the people to the potentialities of the Empire. Do Britons at home realise the possible immensity of their destiny ? Do all the people of the Empire recognise what might be achieved by serious co-operative effort ? There are those who believe that the days of colonising and pioneering are over. Millions have lost the vision that inspired their forefathers. Millions are so immersed in their own petty differences and “-isms” that they have lost the long view and cannot see the wood for the trees. Wars and economic difficulties have interfered with the stream of progress. Modem luxuries, comforts and distractions have dulled ambition and the will to progress. But that will is inherent in the British people, even if for the time being it is suffering an eclipse. It is better that it should be rekindled by a voluntary resurgence than that the people should wait for adversity to put them on their mettle and drive them forward again.