For some little time we people in Dri-tain have been told repeatedly by our Prime Minister, various Cabinet heads, and miliry, naval and air experts—to say nothing of Hitler, Goering and Goebbels—that we are to be subjected to an invasion unprecedented in history for ferocity and ruthlessness; furthermore, that we can now expect this at any minute. It is not known what new tricks of diabolical ingenuity Hitler may have up his sleeve, but we can be sure we are to be given the lot. Even with the best of luck a large number of our good people, men, women and children, are to be cruelly done to death. The famous British stamina, the capacity to endure, to suffer and to survive, is to be given a supreme test. Well, there is no reason why, like the condemned prisoner we are always reading about, we should not eat a hearty breakfast on the morning of the execution. Let us count our blessings. In the characteristic understatement of the English (which I am told is so surprising to Americans) we can say the prospect is rather disturbing. But we have much to be thankful for, For instance, how much better prepared we are io receive our visitors than we were last July when the collapse of France left this unprepared and unorganized island open to crushing disaster. We are no longer lambs waiting tamely for the slaughter.
Most heartening, too, of course, is the warm sympathy and practical aid of our friends in the United States. In the dugouts, kitchens, shelters, factories and barracks throughout the land the evidence and arguments about the progress of aid have been followed with a keenness which overrides national barriers. Why not? We are intimately concerned; but also we have been through the same sort of controvert: selves—so recently—and have learned in the school of bitter experience to distinguish far-sighted statesmanship from the other thing; and to recognize and value the w dom which avoids making the same kind of mistakes we made ourselves before reality hit us on the chin, And, amid all our apprehensions, we find tremendous consolation when we look at the unity of the peoples of the British Commonwealth of Nations—not British Empire—in their war against Hitlerism and Mussolini-ism does not extend to the sinking of local identities, so let it be emphasized that the greater part in Libya, apparently, has been played by the Australians. The effect has been {o attract close and admiring attention to these blood relations from overseas, which is a good thing. Australia and its nearest British neighbour, New Zealand, are far from each other, and both are jealous of identities. Comparisons would be odious except perhaps when drawn by one like myself—a New Zealander who lived a long time in Australia. New Zealand is far from Britain, too. They are both unhampered by tradition. They have the qualities of self-reliance, independence and initiative. They think the best of their race lives in their children and did not die with their great-grandfathers. They have a good deal in common with the people of the United States—they, too, are part of the New World, The British Empire has in its time had its tributes of roses and raspberries from the outside world. A certain Herr Hitler ten years ago wrote in admiration of it. On the other hand Fuehrer Hitler, the Nazi warlord of 1941, views it in a very different light. It is, he thinks, a collection of loot bathed in blood and tears. And, what is worse, badly managed, too. His friend Mussolini is, or rather was, to tear the whole iniquity ous thing apart like a cuckoo clock. They said, "Germany and Italy will free the world from the tyranny of the British. Arise, you victims of British tyranny," they say at large, vaguely. (Not to Canada, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia, of course, because these had already risen—to some purpose).
Despite their concern for the victims of this alleged British tyranny, the aims of the Axis are not particularly humanitarian. Ah, no. They think of Empire in old-fashioned terms of precious materials, ubmarinebases and herds of brown and black skinned cattle or "labour" to be exploited for the benefit of the Master People. The Empire is property. They want it. There is talk of "haves" and "have-nots." "They photograph the purity of their piebald blood corpuscles and discover that they are the best people to run the earth. In neither of the two countries which have Imperial issues with Britain do the Nazis find a response. India shoutd be promising material for the plication of the Goebbel's touch. Close one eye, and he could say we have an unreasonably thwarted Hindu majority; close the other, an unreasonably thwarted Moslem minority. You get it both coming and going, you see, you big bullies that are alway: wrong. But even in India, in the bir! pangs of what must eventually be freedom ana independence, they know Hitler. Hitler would pacify India like Czechoslovakia. Nor in Ireland does Hitler persuade. There is no doubt Hitler would unite Ireland. Oh, yes indeed 8
I will excuse myself from a defence of builders of the British Empire—i any Empire. History tells that in the murky past the escutcheons of all Imperial peoples are badly blotted. But the fact is that the merchant adventurers are dead, and in the time that has marched on their desfendants have learned better sense and a new conception of human rights, with the determination to fight for it, and for the lands they did not acquire but inherited.
Among a people united in waging a war for a general aim there may be many motives. Now so far as the average Englishman is concerned I should not say that he would recognize himself in those blanket denunciations by Goebbel Gayda of ourselves as a race of hun penalists. In fact. I doubt whether if you stopped 100 intelligent-looking persons on the street in Britain many of them could tell you where the Empire is and so on, Yet among us I know there are backward folk who think of the Empire, Dominions and all, vaguely in an acquisitive possessive sense.
They are the same kind of simple souls who think we are fighting for John Bull, the British Lion, the British Bulldog, Britannia and all that collection of obsolete waxworks.
They have got the wrong war.
Australians and New Zealanders, representatives of Empire at an advanced stage of evolution, do not look at it in that way at all. They do not regard themselves or iheir homes as property belonging to Britain or anyone else. That goes not only for the descendants of transplanted whites but for native peoples also. Tell an Australian black that you own him and you will probabl get a boomerang hung round your ne Tell a New Zealand Moor: that you are a better man than he is and he will either hit you on the nose or raise the matter in Parliament. They are no longer a mere investment of exploiting plutocrats. Far from it. As the colonies grow up they claim the latchkey. There are at times high words with the old man.
If there is any questioning of the moral basis of Empire it is not to be resolved by going back to the brutal and degraded value: of three centuries ago, and by handing over lands and peoples as pieces of booty to be ruthlessly exploited by others; but by advancing forward to self-respect, independence and self-government for the dispossessed.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.