The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-06-29

thought they were apt to make mis- | l takes in thinking about this group of
 nations to which they belonged, be- l cause they thought of it as one state. |
 It was not state. The British Elm pire was much larger than a state. l The expression empire was mislead- I ing, Germany was an empire, India was an empire, Rome was an empire. They were far greater than any em-
 pire which existed. they were a whole
 world by themselves, consisting of
 many nations, of many states and of all sorts of communities under one
 flag.
 They were system of states, not a
 stationary system, but a system all
 ways going forward to new destinies.
 They had the United Kingdom, with
 number of Grown Colonies. Besides
 that there were the great protector
 ate of Egypt and the great dependen-
 cy in India, empires in themselves.
 They were trying to make East and
 West work together. Then they had
 the soca1ted dominions, almost inde-
 pendent in government, and which all | belonged to that great community of nations which he preferred to call the l British Commonwealth of Nations. It
 could be seen that no political ideas | evolved in the past would apply to 1 this world which comprised the Bri-
 tish Empire. An entirely new prob< l lem was presented. If they wanted to see how great it was, they must
 indulge in comparisons. In the case of the United States of America, they saw one nation, one big state, consist ing of separate parts, but all linked l up into one big continuous area It ] could be seen that a solution, which
 had been found practicable in the case of the United States, would never work in the case of an enormous sys- tenn, such as they were trying to work out for the world.
 l In all the empires of the past, and
 even in the case of the United States,
 the effort had always been toward l forming one nation. All the empires I of the past and that existed today
 were founded on the idea of assimila- I ton, of trying to force human nature into one mold. They did not want
 to standardize the nations of the Bri- tish Empire, they wanted to develop them toward a. greater nationality.
 They wanted to develop them on the
 lines of self-government and there-I fore their idea was different from any 4 that had existed before. Even the nations which, like his own, had I fought against it, felt that their inter
 ests, their language and their religion
 were as safe under the British flag as I those of the children of English
 households. It was only in propor-
 tion as this was realized that they
 would fulfill their true mission. There
 fore there seemed to him only one
 solution, to follow the tradition in the Il future as in the past, of freedom, self
 I government and of the fullest devel-
 Iopment.
 II Their hereditary kingship, said
 General Shuts. seemed to him a po-
 tent factor in keeping the common 4 wealth of nations together. He felt
 sure that those who speculated about the position of kingship in that coun- try had not thought of the wider is- sues at stake. They could not ake ; a republic of the British common l wealth of nations. The election of a President by the whole Empire would present in insoluble. problem. The ], kingship they had was not very diff , ferent from a hereditary republic. Speaking of the present system of im- perial conferences. General Shuts : said better machinery must be devis- l ed. A precedent had now been laid 7 down for calling the Dominion Prime 7 Ministers and representatives from t the Empire of India to the Imperial ? Cabinet They had seen statement  l intended to perpetuate this system. t What was needed was that the most I important rulers of the Empire 5 should be called together, say once a s year, in order that misunderstanding . might be removed. They needed a 5 meeting like that in order to lay down la common policy for the Empire. : Some such method of procedure l would lead to very important : changes. They could not settle a - common foreign policy for the whole ] British Empire without it's becoming s a much simpler policy than it had been in the past No one would dis | put the supremacy of the Imperial : Parliament; the British government
 would always be the senior partner; t the, Imperial policy would be conduct 5 ed on the lines laid down from time . to time at the Imperial conference T He was sure the effect of a change @ like this was going to be very i'm r portant, not only for the common n wealth of nations, but for the whole a world. He thought too much stress . had been laid in the past on the in v Struments of government People t forgot the world was growing more . democratic and that public opinion r was going to be far more powerful 6 than in the past.
 Il General Shuts said that to him the :, British Empire had only one mission, = and that mission for liberty and for t l greater self-government. They were s the only system in history of league e of nations living in unity. If they d were true to their old traditions of = elf-government and freedom and = were true to those views of their fu- o ture they must exercise far greater = and more beneficial influence on the ' history of mankind then ever they : had done in the past. He prayed they = would have the clearness of vision ,. and of purpose and the strength of d soul in the coming days which would :: be even more necessary than the S strength of arms. It would depend d largely on them whether in the pres- d ent struggle the great prize were f achieved or whether the world were
 once more plunged into disaster. The d prize was within their grasp if they II had the strength of soul to see the }. thing through until victory crowned 2 the efforts of their brave men in the d field.
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