ve referred to this country as the
great treasure house of the Empire's history, and to the care and
devotion shewn by our kinsmen from Overseas in their study of our
country and its institutions. All of us realise how right that is, but
ought we not to reciprocate their devotion and regard, by much more
intense interest and study of their life and the developments of their
institutions?

Our unity demands this wider culture, this reciprocity. The Motherland
must not only teach, she must be prepared to learn. She may lead, but
she must be prepared to follow. We have much to contribute, but in
Religion, in political and social ideals, and in commerce there is much
we need to receive.

If our land is the great treasure house, are not these other lands great
laboratories where we might see, if we would only look, how some of our
accepted ideas, and notions, and watchwords are tested in a larger
arena?

Are we so sure of ourselves that we are prepared to hold on to our own
experience as the final test of the truth and value of our theories? Or
are we big enough in the light of Imperial experience to revise our
judgment, to sift our theories, and to go forward carrying those which
stand the test of the wider arena, and being prepared to surrender those
which only seemed right and proper in the conventional setting of these
small islands?

In conclusion, the Empire has come to power and unity on certain great
principles. Our Imperial ideals have been evolved out of experience all
over the world, and with all kinds of people, under the guidance of
distinguished leaders of many-sided gifts. In an Empire so diverse in
its constituent parts, including peoples at varied stages of
development, it is impossible that those ideals should be everywhere
expressed at their highest power. In many places our methods of
government must be tentative, but everywhere they must be progressive,
placing upon subject peoples the burden of government as rapidly as
they are able to bear it, providing every inspiration that can call them
upwards and onwards. Our tentative methods must never be allowed to
become permanent. We may be tutors, we must never become tyrants. We may
lead, direct, even control, but we may never be content until our people
are free, self-governing, rejoicing in the liberty that enables them to
choose whole-heartedly to remain in that Commonwealth of free peoples we
call the Empire. Along this path lie permanence and clos