UNITY OF THE EMPIRE.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 15658, 2 August 1916, Page 4

UNITY OF THE EMPIRE.

THE "SOUND TABLE'S" AIMS. MK Ly>NEL CURTIS IN . CHBISTCHUBCH. A distinguished visitor in Mr Lionel Curtis, founder of the llound Table movement., and a keen student of Imperial politics and Imperial unity, i was entertained at luncneon by tnc ; New Zealand Club i" the Y..U.C.A. 1 Hooms yesterday. There was a largo attendance, presided over by -Mr A. s>Taylor, with wiioin on tho dais wero tho Mayor Olr H. Holland), Professor T. G. Li. Blunt-, Dr. J. liight, »ir George Clittord, and -Uessia u. ii. ; Trigg* (editor of "iiie i'reis"), -\l- - L. jicauwig iwuor or iuc ••j.ynciutu | Tillies' ), u. 1. lijOWl, JUKI ul.nuiu ■ itcece. In hiicfly intiodu;ing trie {juwt 10 tllu -ul' -v. o. te- ! maii.ca luxi jir v. iii ti.s cu.uu ,o I /icaiaiiu n» oae ot iue pioui-jUJi'a or mo | "Xiotuiii laoiCj ' a Miti-u 1 u:td tiouo more niuia.o ii.tiu. any ou*oi' to piOiuOle imp. rial ac.»«.i.uo.ii ui.ougiioui tiia \unui.i is <ji '•"o i empire. na uacica a to - ,u ' j Oiiitis firstly, rc.iuso i.e cauio jnui mo I -Old V_oUuuy, I'.lut s,'COn-il V , Uv-tailio ot I tne lntj.»«i unison nabs.on oil wnurn "0 ! was engugoU. .... I Mr iii vi--> said that in sivcepting tn° j invitation ot tue New /uaiaiid Cmb to address tiioni, iic had deemed lo tfie story ot ilie itouiul laO.e l« roups, because "it was in Wellington that movoiucut nad lirsi luiUm root, six years ago- Its' original iiupetu.i, I nowever, '.vas to be i ti in tJ" : 11; ?. ! (vitmstani.'O!) liw Uiou ol ! South Africa v.U'wi was _tiua.lv co,i----j Minima ted in tin; year IH'iO, an:! laigely initiated by a small .spction ol the British pnutti.-uion in South Ainea. At tor tki: :i r tho Transvaal and Orange Free Siaie were organised a * Crown under the. government or the High Commissioner of Sojitn Africa. hvr-n before the war had closed a nuinbrr <>: difficult and dolicato questions fad begun to arise between Caoe Colony and Natal, tne Transvaal* and Orange Free btau>. Each of these colouies had separate tariffs and railway lates. It lay imtain the power of tho 'J'ran.-.;aa! governmerit to determine by adjusting tile railway charges how much ol iho iaigl- - trade from the coast to "Witivatersrand passed througa the iwrts of Capo Colony, of Nata , <>i the Portuguese port of Delngoa i>a>. No sooner luul peace been signed a . Voreeuiging tjian the. four colonies found themselves at daggers drawn oyer i these and many other points m ut*i pule... (So-.: long, however, as t&o Transvaal and Oraagn I'sver '' euniinued to be gov.-:ned ;n , colonies the quarrel wan piovenced j lO , coming to on open rupture. -om Milnor and lxird Selborne governed tlie now colonies as benevolent despott- an' as such were able to !; concessions to Cape Colony and >atal snc.i ax -•« Primo MiuisU-r who depended fot office on the votes of the people ol tlio Transvaal could possibly liave matie.nna thus, for live years, latent dissensions were suppressed. In 190G, liowevei, a new Government eauic into power lu England, and decided to establish a resi>ousiblo Government m the J ransvaal and Free State iortuwitli. From the outset the spMkc;r. _t«--ether with the majority ot Untisn people in South Africa, luul tlionglit that the time had arrived «l.en. this change was cssent;a| m tho Transvaal, Crown ' "orcrnment had ceased to be pobsibie. fho real difficulty Jay in_ governing, not the Boers, bat tho British. On the other hand, no one who knew the political conditions ot South Africa could doubt for a moment tnat tho establishment of popular government m tho Transvaal and Free State- would bo followed /by an immediate rupture ot .all tho arrangements made by tno Hi"h Commissioner for settling tho Customs and Railway relations between tho inland colonics and those on tho coast. Thus, when popular government was established, thoughtful South Africans found themselves facca with a sudden recrudesccnco ot that indefinable disease known as the boutn African. Problem/ 7 which, after carcrul study, they found had arisen from tho conflict of two races, the British and Dutch—but from tho conflict between four separate Statos. Iho majority in the Transvaal might settle its own internal questions, and so with Capo Colony, Siatal. and the Orange Free Stnto; but there was in South Africa no Government or Parliament competent to settle all tho burning questions at issue _ between the four separate communities. Political wiseacres all declared that these difficult questions were to be settled _ by cooperation. But in actual practice they were not settled except in so far as to keep the pcacc, the Imperial Government was dragged in from outside to settle these questions, ovor the heads of the South African people. In practice (South Africa would continue to suffer from political paralysis until there wero established. one government responsible to the majority of tho South African people, and competent to settle all questions at issue between any two or inoro sections or localities in South Africa. Such was the doctrine which a small group of Britishers, of whom tho speaker was one, had found themselves called upon to preach. But in practico they knew that tho government of South Africa, when established, would inovitably consist of the IJoer generals they had been fighting during the war. They had to face tho fact that the change would mean placing not only the Transvaal and Free State, but the British populations of Capo Colony and Natal under the government of thoso Boer generals. But, at tho moment when the Union of South Africa came into sight as a practical question, Sir Edward Grey, after thrco years' experience as Foreign Minister, was convinced that Germany was compassing tho destruction of tho whole Commonwealth. In public speeches he warned tho people of tho danger, forced his own Government to abandon the policy of disarmament, to add eight Dreadnoughts to their Naval Estimates, and to summon tho Dominion Governments to tho Defencc Conference which was held in 1909. Men tof British origin who were advocating the Union of South Africa had thus to face the fact that in tho early days of that Union tho British Commonwealth might find itself in mortal conflict with the German and Austrian Empires. Tliey knew tha,t on tho ' Union, the government of South Africa : was certain to be controlled by the Boer | generals; and provided the men in conI trol were General Botha and General Smuts, they were prepared to take the risk: but Iho very real possibility had to be faced that the generals in control might be Hertzog and Beyers; and in that event they were under no illusion as to what would happen. In tho event of war theytnew perfectly well that men liko that would proclaim the neutrality of South Africa, which, in plain words, must mean its independence. The Imperial Government would then be calling upon them as British subjects to fight for that cause, and the South African Government would be forbidding then to fight. In that event, which of these two Governments were they to obey? They had preached, moreover, the doctrine that a British citizen in South Africa must enjoy exactly the same control of all public affairs as a British citizen in the United Kingdom, whero they had by their votes controlled tho Government responsible for t tho _ issues of peace md war. As" British citizona

oven in United South Africa, they had no such control unless or until the South African Ministers declared their independence of the Imperial Government ; and by that declaration they, as South Airicans, would lose their etatua once for all as British citizens. V ith the object of solving this ii-O* mentous problem, three «f them Trent to Canada in 1909, to ascertain the view I of people in the oldest- and most ex- j ponenoed of tho Dominions in the mat- | tor. Of these three men one was a New Zealander, W. S. Marris, one of the ablest men ever produced bv this country, who had been lent by the In* dian *G%vemuiui*t> to reorganise the Transvaal Civil Service. Both _ in Canada and in England they received ihe samo answer to their enquiries: "The British Empire was one and in- { divisible. The sun never set on it, : and never would 'sot._ It. consisted, i cf live or six autonomous, i sovereign and in-equal States." Further, tlio foreign poik-y of those sepa- > rat 0 Stale, \ta= conducted. After yarc- j t'ul analysis, however, they were driven ; to tho conclusion that_the position as < lepresentoil to ihoiu in Canada and ! Eugiand did not conform with the ac- l tual facts. but that in reality tho foreign p:iii;_v <>'. the whole British Com- > monwealth w:ir> coauucieti in London l by Ministers only to the j electorate of tile V' 11 iled Kingdom. The j issues of p ;, ac(> and war rested in their 1 hands, and if their policy resulted in j v.-nr. .Dominion Ministers could only • evade that wai by a .Declaration of In-j dependence. S:i fsvr n« peace and war, 1 the first of all public interests, was con- j corned, xhe people, of tile Dominions ; had lit) more controlled their own des- i tir-v than those oi' India or 1 ,- iji. But! to anyone wr.a had visited the great j Dominion of v.imada. it was perfectly i plain that those conditions could not continue tor mai:y years longer. The time wises at hand when tho people of Canada would by force of circumstances acquire the same control of foreign afiairs as that exercised by the people of the I'nited Kingdom, and that position would be not only m A.'rioa, but in :t!i tne self-govern-ing Dominions of the British Commonwealth. J ivjso conclusion,3 were so contrary to current l:«ip..-nni ooctruics, c:o startling and so unp ua.abie, tnat meir authors iw.-iili'd iciir it v.oukl Ue madness to publish or 1.0 attempt to act upon them until tliev jiad ueen sifted to tho uimo.ii oy Uii.iKiug men 111 ai) the Doiiiimo:.s uincvnii'i!. Ine speaker himself, tneietoie, was asKed to take the memorandum to Autilraiasia ancLsubmit it to ttie criticism ot people in these Dominions. Arriving 1.1 Wellington in July, li.'ii', he sui;miiieu the ease to men connected with the University .there. Tlioy ciccidecl to form a small gioup, ]>arily of university men, and paitly of tuijiiicss men. lo study tho problem privately, in coiialwravion with the iSouth Africans wih> submitted the memorandum. 'J his group recommended the creation of further groups in Cluistehureh, Dunedin, Wanganui, and Auckland. These were quickly called into existence, and others were established in Australia —Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Perth; and subsequently in Canada, India, ami the United Kingdom. All those groups after considering the South African memorandum sent in "their criticisms to tho speaker, who acted as a kind of general secretary. With the assistance of John Allen, son of tho Minister of Defence (who has since gallantly laid down his life at Gallipoli) this mass of criticism from all tho Round Table groups was printed, .indexed, and circulated to all tho members. He then sat down to prepare a report on tho whole Imperial problom, but soon began to realise that he had undertaken to describe and account for a polity whicli included more than a quarter of the human race. It was apparent that any report which.would deal with the subject in all its aspects would be a formidable document, and would cover more than three largo printed documents. Tho first volume was completed before the outbreak of war, and wilj bo published shortly, under the title of "The Commonwealth of Nations." When war broke out it was obvious that tne luomeiio peace returned, tiic question of how tne peoples of tne .Dominions were to control the issues or peace and war would become acute. The speaker therefore undertook to prepare anil submit to the groups a popular report on the subject siiort enough to tie read by the man in tho street. This draft was printed for private circulation, among the groups last year under the title of 'xnc Problem of the Commonwealth:'' In Canada, where the groups had been spreading with great rapidity, no less than fcOO copies were distributed among tiie members, with wIC rosult that some copies got into the hands of newspapers, which began to discuss them.. The views expiessed i" "The Problem of tho Commonwealth" tben began to be imputed to the Bound Table as such. The Round Table groups, however, were a student organisation, and were 110 more capable of formulating and uttering a policy than the New Zealand Clubs 01 the Workers' Educational Association. As the only dean way out of the difficulty the speaker ""had therefore been urged by the members of the Round Table groups to publish the book on bis own authoiitv, and undei* his own name. He had thereforo decided to accept this responsibility, but before doine so re-wrotc the book in tho light of such criticisms as had rcached him from the groups, and in response to the sneci.'il request of the secretary of the Club he proposed to devoto the few minutes which remained to a statement in outline ot the case presented therein. New Zealand, as the speaker reminded his hearers, was committed to war by Ministers who were not responsible to the people of New Zealand, and when peace returned tho Ministers charged with the task of keeping that peace unbroken for New Zealand would not bo answerable to New, Zealand voters. This, continued the speaker, could not last. • Peace or war, the issues of national 'life and death were the greatest of all national interests. Certainly the time would come, and at no distant date, when the people of tho great self-governing Dominions would have Ministers responsible to themselves for foreign affairs. Thftre were, however, two ways, and two only, in which this could bo done. The first was by telling foreign nations that in future peace and war would be made for New Zealand, not in London, but in "Wellington. Such a notification, however, was a declaration of indeperdence. By adopting this course, however, the Dominions would disrupt tho British Commonwealth for the maintenance of which' they were now fighting the Germans. The alternative was to make the Ministers nowresponsible for Imperial affairs no less answerable to New Zealanders than to Englishmen. In order to do this the present Imperial Government roust first be divested of all business solely relating to the British Isles. Britain must have a Dominion Government of its own to look after its own affairs, just as Canada or South Africa had. The Imperial Cabinet and Parliament could then be so reconstructed as to make them representative of all the Dominions, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand. v and South Africa, as well as Britain. Tho measure required to effect such a change eould only be drafted by an Imperial Convention representing , the leaders of all parties in all the Dominions, and ratified by the people in each of the countries concerned. And by no other means could tho British Commonwealth continue to exist. Self-government was the breath of its nostrils, the_ law of its being, and unless that principle were realised, in its institutions tho British Commonwealth would bre*;k up. It was the Dominions rather than Britain which would bo called upon to decide whether or no this chango was to be made. Thot flowex* of their manhood were' js»'-ing

their lives for fho British - Commonwealth. but whether thoso livc 3 were to be given in vain, whether the work thev were doing was to be made or marred, would depend upon what those who outlived them did after the war. In facing ..this problem tho Dominions would decide not merely their own future and fate, but that of tho % whole British Commonwealth. -That was tho speaker's reason for laying these issues before them during tho war. . At the conclusion of his very interesting address. Mr ,Curtis was loudly applauded. . Mr Curtis will deliver a further address on "Imperial Unity" at. the Chamber of Commerce on Iriday evening'.