ETERNAL STANDARDS
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Last week there was held at Bristol, under the auspices of the Royal Empire Society, an Empire School. It was notable for the warm hospitality of the people of Bristol, and a remarkable series of lectures.
The lectures had an impressive unity in the manifest desire of distinguished lecturers to point the way to what may be termed a new philosophy of Empire. The necessity for such a philosophy is inherent in the Statute of West- minster. That Statute was a death-blow to philosophies based on mechanistic theory and a clarion call to think out the problem of Empire anew. It would be difficult to exag- gerate the value of the School as an aid to one's appreciation of the nature and importance of the task.
There was not, however, a sufficient emphasis on the objective character of those realities which can and will sustain an enduring Empire solidarity. Such emphasis is necessary for a people who abhor the self-consciousness and touch of conceit which lurk in the suggestion that they proclaim the merits of ideas and theories which are of their own devising. We feel critical of a call to conserve for man- kind British justice, British liberty, British honour, and the other treasures we have inherited as citizens of the Empire. But in reality • our treasures are not British at all. Justice, Liberty, Honour have been apprehended by the British people more clearly and carried into practice by them more faithfully than by any other people. But it is necessary to remember that they are not the creation of the British people. For the Platonist they subsist in the realm of the Absolute. In Christian thought they inhere in the Will of God. How- ever the fact be stated, it is from these timeless verities that we derive the charter for a mission to one another and to mankind. Only humility can have the vision and know its power. Only the courageous will face the fact of its perpetual challenge.
In the light of these absolutes we shall find the way to a philosophy of Empire for which a search is proceeding.—
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