Who Owns The British Empire?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 57, 26 July 1940, Page 5

Who Owns The British Empire?

OST of us know, and some of us remember, but none of us can be reminded too often that the British Empire of foreign propagandists is a political and economic myth. Britain does not own Canada, or Australia, or New Zealand, or South Africa. The parliament of the United Kingdom does not control the parliament of any overseas Dominion. Mr. Churchill has no more authority over Mr. Fraser than Mr. Mackenzie King has over General Smuts. Each Dominion makes its own laws and all are free to make and maintain associations with other powers. Eire, for example, still maintains diplomatic relations with Germany. | We have said that most of us know these things; but many of us forget them, and when enemies lie about them we assume too carelessly that the lies are nowhere believed. They are believed almost everywhere by foreigners who are not students of politics. Sir Norman Angell declared a few weeks ago that they are believed by "large and powerful sections of opinion" in the United Kingdom itself. In an article in a recent Picture Post he pointed out, not only that our propagandists do little to correct these lies, but that "eminent British officials" since the war started have announced them to the world as the truth, They are also, he argues, announced to the world in most British maps, which show dominions, colonies, protectorates, and mandates all equally red, and convey the impression to friends and enemies alike that Britain owns Canada and Australia and something like half of Africa. All those careless splashes of red are fuel for the enemy’s fire. They help him to beat up hate*at home and circulate lies abroad. They obscure the fact that Britain has been de-imperialising most of that territory for three-quarters of a century-*unconquering her conquests; de-annexing her annexations; -turning what used to be an Empire into a group of sovereign states." It is largely our own fault that the world thinks of us as possessors of a quarter of the globe, has never realised that the Empire is not an "estate" owned and controlled from London, and has not even a dawning consciousness of the reality of the Statute of Westminster. Sir Norman Angell’s article should be reprinted in pamphlet form and exported to America and Russia by the ton.