"ALL-RED " SENTIMENTALISTS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 96, 16 January 1908, Page 6

"ALL-RED " SENTIMENTALISTS.

— . We reprint to-day from an English ournal a lengthy . report- of the ipeeches upon the proposed " All Red loute" delivered at the_ dinner of 'thej jiberal Colonial Club in London on J ecomber 3 1 ast, to which : brief refer: snce was made in a cable message at ihe time. What must strike the ■eader in the speeches is the, unanimity rith which the various speakers 4 ig- : lored the practical issues which must letermine the question. The advan;ages of an " All lied " service jointly iwned by Great Britain, Canada, and lustralasia hardly! require pointing 1 mt. As a medium for the developnent of the inter-Empire emigration iliat is certainly to be one of the. most itriking of future Imperial movements,' ind as a valuable transport agency for :ood and troops in time of war, it does lot require such speeches to commend t. Much more profitable at the Club's linner than an emphasising of the obvious virtues would have been a de'ence against the criticisms founded oi ;he obvious weaknesses of the scheme, [Jntil the Committee which is considr irjng the questioji has presented report—and it has been an unconscionr ibly long time about it already—all jstimates of the cost of the scheme must be guesswork,, but it is quite ceriain that the cost will be nothing less than huge. ' Will that cost—will i ; a subsidy of one million sterling—have i sufficient set-off in the'advantages of the scheme? We have little faith in imperial projects whose promoters ivave ; away the question of cost in n lofty flight of Imperialist rhetoric. For some years the, service can be nothing but an excessively costly passenger and mail service, and we have luite good passenger and niail services already. Its virtues are wholly potential, and if its advocates desire the people of the countries concerned to admit tliat the potentialities will be bought cheap at the cost ,of a huge subsidy, it is their business to reduce their rhetoric to hard facts; ■•Nothing is easier to say, as-Mr. Clifford Siftop said, that it is " an Imperial-proposal based on high political grounds,"' and " claiming imperatively the support oi every man who saw in the future oi the British Empire a usefulness and a greatness which excelled anything the world had ever seen." Nothing is more difficult to prove to the people who will have to pay the money. ■ If Mr. Siftor was vague, Mr. W. P. Reeves was equally unconvincing. "If the route,' he said, "did nothing at all in the way of trade, it might still be justifiei on the ground that it would give then the healthiest, pleasantest, most rapic route of passenger communication .between the different, pares of the Empire and the Mother Country." Bu at what price?. New Zealand, we hope will not be influenced by washy rheto ric, and it is irritating to find tha Mr. Reeves imagines that any absurd ity has only to be labelled " Empire' to be swallowed by the people of thi: country. We pass' no final' judgmen on the project, but we do think tha the All Red Imperialists should ge down to facts and figures. Is the id.e< a nice tourist-route, or an Imperia maritime reserve? And what will >i cost? The Empire will not be injure* if we cease talking poetry and turn ti facts now and then.