AUSTRALIA'S VOICE.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 7, 8 January 1917, Page 7

AUSTRALIA'S VOICE.

AND THE REAL ISSUES.

DEFENCE FrRST AND LAST. THE CHINA WALL OF TRADE. INTERESTING; REFERENDUM VIEWS. Amongst the through passengers ■ by the Niagara is Sir William McMillan, a former New South Wales Colonial Treasurer, and a prominent authority in the Commonwealth on constitutional mat-. teva. -Sir William was a member of the National Convention which framed the Commonwealth Constitution, and sat in the first House of Representatives. He is returning to Australia now after a six months' business visit to the Old Country.

When approached "this morning for his opinion on the political and military position at Home, Sir William remarked that when he left England the political situation was undergoing such changes that he could say no more on the subject than was already known here. Everywhere he went, however, he was impressed with the spirit of grim determination in Great Britain to see the war through to victory at any cost, and the immensity of the military effort, together with the supremo sacrifices being made to assist in the nation's organised resolve, were an object lesson to the visitor from the sheltered and prosperous Antipodes. PRINCIPLE OF IMPERIAL SERVICE. This brought the traveller to the situation in Australia, and especially to the probable effect of the referendum vote on the compulsion issue. "Having been away from Australia during the critical period I am not able to discuss details, nor have I seen the bill upon which the referendum on the question of compulsion was based," said Sir William McMillan, "but it is probable that it may have only applied to the period of the war. But if not, and if it were permanently embodied in the constitution the great value of the vote cast in the affirmative would be, to my mind, the acceptance of the principle that every man in the Commonwealth of Australia would be compelled under eimilar circumstances to those of the present war to eerve in any part of the Empire. We want certain voluntary ties to consolidate the Empire in the future, and the voluntary recognition of the fact that the mere enlistment of men was not for service confined to our own shores, but for the Empire, would have had a great annealing influence in the future. These are the sort of ties that we require, together with the patriotism and sentiment arising out of the present war, to bind the different parts of the Empire together as one people, instead of trusting entirely to trade relations, as some people desire to do."

THE TRADE BOXD ASPECT. "We arc so intimately affected by our geographical surroundings," went on our visitor, "that each part of the Empire will more or less be influenced by its trade relations with the countries adjacent to it. All countries claiming the position of empires are, with the exception of a few unimportant colonies, possessed of continuous territory, which as times goes on will become more consolidated by modern appliances of locomotion. But our Empire, divided Into five or six oversea possessions, is in a different position altogether,' and I have always thought that any attempt to arag the trade away from its natural channels must ultimately be prejudicial to the consolidation of the wihole. It ie only matters of defence, appeals to the Privy Council, and especially at this time the joining of all our forces, naval and military, which are now the greatest united consideration. These are, to my mind, the ties which will count in the consolidation of the British Empire as against the extreme views of some people who want to put a china wall of trade around the British Empire. I am eorry therefore, that the referendum failed to enunciate Australia's determination to recognise the true principle of Imperial unity, because there always will be no matter how the voluntary'system is earned out, a residuum of men who never will enlist except under eompukion. And sudh men, under the voluntary system, can evade their duty and obligations as citizens of the Empire indefinitely."