Seeds of Liberty

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 489, 5 November 1948, Page 5

Seeds of Liberty

Conference is over it is difficult not to feel some regret that Britain has been so successful in sowing the seeds of liberty. It has cost her an Empire and, temporarily at least, seems likely to forbid a fully effective commonwealth, Eire is as good as out. India seems committed to getting out. South Africa remains in chiefly for her own advantage. We are poor Britons if that does not depress us. But we can also be proud Britons. The Empire has takeri these jolts because it has practised liberty as well as preached it. There have been necessities too, of course, which it would be fatuous to ignore: two wars, weariness, impoverishment. It would not have been easy for Britain to bear the burdens of Empire to-day if that had been her purpose and policy. But it would not have been impossible. The only impossible thing was to try to bear them, to forget all the preachings and promises and argue that the time had not yet come for carrying them out. "This she has not done. She has not once been near doing it. She has agreed that people fit for freedom should have it and has accepted all the consequences, some of them clearly very grave. For we must not suppose that generosity infallibly begets generosity. We may hope that it will, but to be sure that it will is to have seen little and understood less during the last 10 years. Britain has not moved from one safe place to another. She has moved with high courage into the unknown and New Zealand goes with her. If it would be humbug to say that we all go. gladly there is something seriously wrong with us if we go grudgingly. We should realise that Britain has never needed us more than she needs us to-day, that the fewer we are in the Commonwealth the more closely we must co-operate, and that we can share the glory only if. we share the risks. h co that the Commonwealth