In our consideration of this whole subject we are to take the Christian
standpoint. To us, the words "Thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in
Heaven," on Divine lips were more than a pious wish. They were a great
intention, the expression of age-long purpose. We believe that the gains
of the centuries--the harvest of the past which is worth
conserving--have been secured by moral and spiritual conquest, rather
than by military or political achievement. There may be elements in our
present forms of unity which we may well allow to go by the board. The
things that make for permanence will abide not only with an enlightened
statesmanship, but with a growing understanding, an ever broadening
interpretation of Christian teaching about

The Kingdom of God on earth,
The Universal Fatherhood of God, and
The brotherhood of man,

leading the nation to see that the knowledge of God and of His Christ is
the rightful inheritance of every son of the Empire.

As these great ideals of social life have been interpreted in the life
of either sovereign peoples or subject peoples, so, we believe, and only
so, have bonds been forged that can be trusted to stand the strain which
time and changing condition and circumstances impose.

Unity, even the Empire itself ultimately, depends, as we believe, on a
broad-based statesmanship, carrying up the main principles of our
Government to their highest power in action, and, constantly throughout
the Empire, mediating those doctrines to the peoples concerned as they
are able to bear them, with ever-extending inspiration and encouragement
to growth and development.

Our Imperial aims are neither antagonistic to nor inconsistent with our
Christian programme. That should constitute a challenge to the Christian
Churches, and is in itself a matter for high and solemn pride. The war
has cleared the air. As stated during this period, the ideal of a
federation of nations, free, independent, and at the same time
interdependent, each working out its national destiny, each
contributing, in terms of opportunity, to the well-being of the whole,
bringing to bear on Imperial matters the heart, brain, will of the
whole, gives us a picture of a Commonwealth in advance of any
contemporary political programme, with the one conspicuous exception of
that of the United States of America, between whom and ourselves is
being established a Unity which may well be more valuable to the world
at large and