What was said about the Cathedrals is equally true of our two ancient Universities. Mr Fisher's Education Bill may well mean more for Imperial unity than almost any other single factor. It will mean an ever increasing number of men to whom "Cambridge" and "Oxford" will be magic words. If our view of culture is broad enough we shall see to it that these two Universities become increasingly places where the children of the Empire who are fit to graduate in them shall not lack the opportunity of doing so. Because these ancient foundations link with the past, because of all they may mean to the present and to the future, the way to them should be made broad enough to admit the living stream of Greater Britain's children, who by dint of gifts and industry have proved their fitness to meet their peers in these delectable cities, where the very air breathes the romance of British culture. Their right of entry ought not to be won by the benefactions of private citizens, though all who love knowledge are grateful enough for these, but should be theirs by their citizenship in the Empire and their own tested fitness.
Nothing again is more hopeful in the present situation than the manifest desire, widely felt and expressed, that the old class-antagonisms should never be revived. Surely this is the strategic moment in which we may make the War once more contribute to a better state of things. Our politicians are awake to the need and are inventing every kind of machinery for bringing Capital and Labour together in Council Chambers as co-partners in the Commerce of the Empire. But there are sinister forces also at work, and this machinery can only run if it is controlled by men of resolute good will.
The War has been a great bridge-builder linking up in the fellowship of discipline and sacrifice people between whom chasms yawned before. There are knowledge and understanding and sympathy to-day amongst us. Yet many of us are convinced that no purely political machinery can be made effective in achieving so great a task as the making permanent of this new and better condition. We need a new and abiding spirit of conciliation, a deeper determination than political action can produce, that things shall not relapse, that the forces of re-action shall not triumph. The one hope of carrying over into permanence this new understanding and appreciation lies in the nation becoming impregnated with those spacious spiritual ideals that the Churches together represent. Nothing is impossible to faith, and faith in God and man will be kept astretch in the discipline that will be demanded of us all, in the breaking down of false barriers that have grown up through the years and the destruction of long-lived prejudices that will die hard.
The Empire itself is a unity. It is not easy for English people to realise all that is implied here. My great name-sake urged us in this country to "think Imperially." Another voice asks us "What do they know of England who only England know?" but it is hard for us to think except in terms of England. For example, I have 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 closer unity. In our Imperial destiny it is the part of those who would be the greatest to become the servants of all.
Thank God for all who have laboured in this spirit to build our goodly heritage.