The Sun SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1914. IMPERIAL RELATIONS.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume 1, Issue 8, 14 February 1914, Page 6 (Supplement)

The Sun SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1914. IMPERIAL RELATIONS.

Incidents such as the debate in the House of Commons yesterday on Mr Ramsay Mac Donald's impossible amendment to the Address-in-Reply serve a useful purpose if they help to clear up some of the misapprehensions in the popular mind regarding the true relationship of the Mother Country to the Dominions. Mr Mac Donald wanted the Government to instruct the GovernorGeneral of South Africa to reserve the Indemnity Bill until a judicial enquiry had been instituted into the deportations. At least that was the effect of the amendment, although in all probability its sole object was to raise a Parliamentary discussion on the question. There certainly ought to be a judicial enquiry, such' as the Labour Party asks for, but it is not within the province of the British Parliament to direct that it shall take place. Nor does anyone know that bettfer than Mr Ramsay Mac Donald. The matter only requires to be looked at from another standpoint to make this perfectly clear. Suppose the Labour Government of Australia did something that exercised public opinion seriously in the Mother Country and.a Unionist member emulated Mr Mac Donald to the extent of asking the British Government to interfere? The howl of protest would reecho round the Empire. The day has long gone by since any such step was desirable or practicable. The Dominions have outgrown parental restrictions of this kind, and must work out their own destiny as-far as the administrate n of their internal affairs is concerned. The South African Government must answer for its sins to the people of South Africa. If they choose to condone the arbitrary proceedings of the past few weeks there is an end of it. The whole question has an intimate bearing, however, on tro larger question of "ome closer political union between Britain and the Dominions, which is frequently advocated in the guise of "Imperial Federation." Up to a point we are all Imperialists, but as there can be no Imperial Federation without a surrender on the part of the Dominions of some of the functions that dominion governments are now competent to exercise, the point in question is located but a very short distance along the road. The spirit of independence is so exceedingly pronounced in the legislation and policy of dominion governments that no one can imagine them transferring back to some Imperial authority the right to frame their own tariffs, for instance, or deal with colour problems, labour and industrial questions, etc., as arise, in their own way. Yet without a very extei.sive subordination of dominion interests to Imperial interests, no such dream as Imperial Federation is realisable. There is another Imperial Conference next year, and the same old question is bound to crop up. It does not require the gift of prophecy to see that some fundamental changes in the relations of Britain and the Dominions are inevitable. Within the next fifty years the population of the United Kingdom

will be exceeded by the white population of the Dominions. The probabilities are that long before that the Dominions will desire to be treated as allies rather than as dependents, and instead of an Imperial Federation we are more likely to have a league of Anglo-Saxon nationalities, politically separate, but sufficiently united on questions of foreign policy to act in concert.