THE EMPIRE'S RACE PROBLEM.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 322, 8 October 1908, Page 6

THE EMPIRE'S RACE PROBLEM.

Although there has been before Parliament within the last few days a Bill relating to Asiatic immigration) that problem has ■ not been attracting much notice in this country for some time past. But in South Africa and in other parts of the Empire it is still in the foreground of public questions, and that the British Government is still giving attention to it is apparent from the interesting statement by Colonel Seely, the Under-Secre-tary for the Colonies, that we printed in our cable news of Tuesday last. " Wo are drawing very near a better system .in the government of the Empire," he is reported as having said at Liverpool, and the cablc message adds that he " predicted the establishment of a great Council of Empire to discuss the question of Asiatic immigration." Although a " prediction " of . this kind may merely be an opinion, it is highly probable that matters are under way for the holding of an Imperial. Conference to discuss this gravely important problem. t It will bo remembered that we discussed on August 4 last a speech by Colonel Seely in the House of Commons, in which we were given for the first time a full statement of the new and statesmanlike policy of the British Government. That policy we described as an admission of the paramountcy of the colonial view in certain affairs. The full report of the speech makes even more satisfactory reading than the condensed summary furnished by cable, since it discloses a quite surprising skill in understanding the colonial view, and sympathising with it. Colonel Seely was referring chiefly to the objections raised in some quarters against the restrictions placed upon the immigration of Indians into Canada and the Transvaal, and ho warned Englishmen not to adopt any " superior attitude " —" not to say, ' Surely all men in the Empire are equal,' and not to hold too closely to the right of a man to say ' Civis Romanus sum, and, being a citizen of the Empire, I can go where I please.' " " It was easy," he said, " to ,utter those very pro-1 per sentiments because wo had no corresponding dangers in this country," and ho proceeded to discuss, and to approve, the various motives actuating the white colonics in their dislike of coloured immigration, giving to " racial antipathy " the first place in importance, and also in reasonableness. On this point he compressed into the briefest compass one of the wisest things ever saicl on racial antipathy: " It was the duty of philosophers and Christians to remove racial antipathy before statesmen and politicians introduced an alien element. To take the opposite course . . . could only cause infinite suffering to both the races concerned." After stating, on behalf of the Gove'rnment, that " if' a self-governing colony decided that they must exclude a ccrtain class of persons, the Home Government could not interfere," he laid down the good rule that " if persons were admitted the.v must be given civil rights." It was in this speech that lie forecasted a general discussion of the whole subjcct through the machinery of the new Imperial Secretariat. '-He thought that it was ncccssary to make the Imperial

Secretariat a reality, to make it, indeed, the great clearing-house of the Empire." Since that speech was delivered the suggested conference has received no little support in the British Press. The Spectator is of the opinion that the picccraeal method of dealing with the question should be abandoned, and that there should be substituted for it " common principles of action " settled by an exchange of views between the different Governments in the Empire. To New Zealanders, satisfied with the British Government's formal recognition of their completo liberty of exclusion, there may appear to be no need for a general conference or the establishment of " common principles of action." But if the colonies-have a viewpoint thn the Home authorities should recognise, there is a British view that demands recognition by the colonies. Colonials, as .10 Spectator points out, are apt to' forget that their unequalled safety and their enviable autonomy arc duo to the 'fleets, armies, and diplomatists of Britain. For example, Mr. Lejiieux's mission to Japan about immigration into Canada would not have been so easy and satisfactory if Great Britain were not at Canada's back. While the British Government, therefore, recognises the rights and respects the feelings of .the colonies, it can reasonably ask that the colonies should not use their liberty to the confusion and embarrassmont of British diplomacy. We expressed the opinion in August last that the British Government, "in handing over the reins in this matter to the colonial Governments, has not imperilled the safety of the Imperial coach," but in the future eireumstancesiiiay have so changed that the want of a concerted Imperial policy may prove a source of infinite trouble to the Empire.