Mr L. S. Amery MP, speaking at the Authors' Club dinner in London, at which Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins presided, said that he hoped the day would come when a single name could be found to denote the British Empire.
It was a stroke of imaginative statesmanship when English statesmen, at the time of the union between England and Scotland, were prepared to abdicate their national name and, in the face of ridicule, to have the name of Britain for the united country.
A great chance was missed when Ireland was given Dominion status. Froude had suggested Oceania as a name for Great Britain or the British Empire. Britannia might suit.
Mr Tim Healy, ex-Governor-General of the Irish Free State, caused laughter by asserting that the very words Britain and Britannia had their roots in the ancient Irish tongue. He paid a tribute to Mr Amery saying: "I was Governor-General for five years under his aegis in the Colonial Office, and I conceived the highest respect for his moderate and constitutional views."
Mr Amery expressed the opinion that the greatest days of the British people at home and in the Empire were yet to come. The recognition of the equality of the Dominions was bringing the whole of Greater Britain together more closely.
The Irish Times, October 22nd, 1929