The Company of Commonwealth Venturers
SIR,—Men and women throughout Britain and the Commonwealth are stirring to the powerful vision of a New Elizabethan Age. Her Majesty the Queen, in her address to Ex-Servicemen at their Coronation Parade, has clearly set our task before us: "Much depends on the strength of purpose that we can, in oqr daily lives, devote to the cause of peace. The power of the Commonwealth weighs mightily in the balance. All that we can do, both as individuals and collectively, to strengthen its spiritual and material forces helps us towards the goal of peace."
We cannot pursue this vision without great social and personal energy and the turning of our entire spiritual, moral, and material resources to the adventurous pursuit of new knowledge, new skills and new relationships.
That those who share this belief may sustain one another in the several enterprises, we suggest that these divers men and women join together in a great Company of Commonwealth Venturers. Such a Company must be open to all men and women throughout the Common- wealth, and dedicated to replacing the present fading incentives of restriction, security and profit by the Elizabethan call of adventure, expansion and prestige.
The Company's immediate objects must be: (1) To bring the leaders of the spiritual faiths in the Commonwealth
together in .a Commonwealth Assembly so that they may marshal together the spiritual impulses and moral values of our diverse communities and especially forge a strong spiritual bond for Youth.
(2) To promote, in the changed world economic conditions, a policy for Land and Food development.
(3) To promote a common policy of economic development in the Commonwealth, securing the requisite capital ihvestment, as far as possible, from our own sources. To support this policy of development of the Commonwealth, by the Commonwealth, for the Commonwealth, the Company will campaign for the estab- lishment of a Commonwealth Savings Board.
(4) To encourage free development in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth, and to liberate initiative from the restraint of bureaucratic controls.
(5) To complement in every possible way the co-operation of the United Kingdom and CommonwOalth Governments by closer unity and understanding between their peoples.
The Company will make it possible for the peoples of the Common- Wealth to match the inspiring dedication of our Queen with an answer- ing pledge of our resources to a great ideal.
Friends with whom I have discussed these aims have promised their adherence. They have already guaranteed a fund of over a quarter of a million pounds for the "Company of Commonwealth Venturers," Providing that there is a reasonable public response to this initial call and to the individual appeals which will be going out from the Officers of the Company. It is the opinion of my friends that a Million pounds would be the least sum of which this ideal is worthy, in subscriptions of every magnitude: The modest postal-order will be no less welcome than the £5,000 cheque. The challenge is not to the few and the task needs the help of a great concourse. I there- fore invite contributions and applications for membership, to be sent to me at the House of Commons, the former made out to The Company of Commonwealth Venturers and crossed National Provincial 'lank. My appeal is to all who are willing to venture some measure of their time, resources and skill, in strengthening Britain and advancing the unity and prosperity of the Commonwealth.—Yours faithfully, PET,ER BAKER, M.C., M.P.
House of Commons.
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