Letter: Our Old International Relationships Can Be Resurrected and Improved

Published on: 5 Dec, 2017
Updated on: 5 Dec, 2017

From Ngaire Wadman

I agree with Mr Wragg on his concise explanation of the profound difference in attitude to authority between the Continental and the British.

There is also a strong layer of historical association and the Anglo-Saxon approach when dealing with former British colonies while the Asian approach could easily be likened to the European authority with its surfeit of minutely detailed controls from a large centralised government. This creates a mindset of automatic obedience whereas the more libertarian approach shows the echoes of the small, local government approach of the Anglo-Saxon Moot.

The flexibility and enterprise allowed by the British model enabled New Zealand and Australia to survive the trade abandonment imposed by our entry to the Common Market, but at a great cost to our historical links. As a Brit, of New Zealand parentage, I feel these links will again have enormously beneficial influence once they are strengthened by social and economic arrangements.

We need to crack on here, and there are various organizations already working on it. Let’s get Guildford involved as a town with strong potential for global association.

There is still a lot of goodwill growing from the past, and we’re in a good place to encourage it – with this generation, anyway – but the links do need maintenance.