The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1913. DOMINIONS AND EMPIRE.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 276, 19 November 1913, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1913. DOMINIONS AND EMPIRE.

For the cause that lacks assistar.ee, For the terong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do.

The tour or the Kmpire Corn-mission id already hearing fruit at Home in the enthusiastic speeches delivered by 50,,,,----of the returned travellers and their laud:, tory references to t-he oversea Dominions ami the young nations now growing up to maturity on the Imp,'rial frontiers. Bui --hilt, the members of the Commission all agree thai thr Domini ms .ire s-lii 1 loyal and patriotic, and si ill look io England and her Parliament as the natural centre of the Empire, they jhavo been deeply impr-seed by other ph.it,r« ot - Imperialism which so far have been ignored or have been insufficiently appreciated at Home. Mr Haanar Greenwood, for example, one of the leading Liberal members of the House of Commons, declares that though the Dominions are intensely independent, and even self-assertive in their conception of their awn righls and privileges, they all desire "'to share the burden in future in peace and war, with the Motherland"; and this, he considers, is the most important lesson of the tour. It is possible that Mr Greenwood, like many other Imperialists, has taken too optimistic a 'view of the colonies in this rt-spect. For, loyal as the oversea Dominions undoubtedly are, they are less iuclined than ever to sink their individuality in that of the Motherland or to subordinate their own (vita! interests to ihe political or diplo- : matic convenience of British statesmen. However, 'Mr Greenwood is on safer ground when he says that Australia and New Zealand are deqdy concerned about the "necessity for self-defence, that they recognise more clearly than England the i possibility or the imminence of danger from the Far East, and that they would welcome any attempt by the Admiralty Ito take thero more fully into its con fidence. and to devise with their assist- , ance a co-operative naval policy in which i all the constituent portions of the Empire might play their part. An entirely different aspect of the Imperial problem is touched upon by I Sir Algred Ermnott and Mr. Lough in their reminiscences of the tour. These | gentlcment appear to have been chiefly | impressed by the prosperity of the Do- < minions, the comfortable conditions j of life that their people, generally speaking, enjoy, and their immense though , still undeveloped potentialities. Mr. I Lough further comments upon the cxi traordinary rapid growth and the carel ful organisation of onr methods of govI crnment, and he even risks the opinion that we could in these respects teach the Motherland many lessons that it might profit her to learn. It is well known by those interested in such matters that colonial methods of agri culture and fanning are more scientific and up-to-date than those still generally employed at Home; but it is not often tiiat distinguished British visitors are prepared to make this admission. I*passing, we may remark that we hope the people of Australia and New Zealand will take to heart Sir Rider Haggard' 3 warning against the reckless destruction of our native timber. We cannot agree I with him that the kauri should be preserved indefinitely; for the natural fate of valualble timber trees, when they have reached maturity, is to be cut down and utilised. Moreover. the kauri I happens to be a tree that is difficult to I protect against fire, and it is practically ! impossible to reproduce it because of its j abnormally slow growth. But we are entirely at one with Sir Rider Haggard in his protest against the wasteful slaughter of the forests, and we hope that what be said while in New Zealand, and what he has written on this subject | since his return to Kngland, will help lo arouse public opinion, and induce Parliament and people alike fo realise the terrible losses and injuries indicted on our country by wholesale deforestation. But this is perhaps a side issue, and we recognise with the "Diily Mail"* that one of the most important inferences that can be drawn from the «our of the Empire Con-mission is the necessity for bringing the British Partrarment more closely into touch with public -•entiment in the oversea Dominions, n-rpetiallv in regard to the great problems of-Imperial ieieoce.