The Dominion. FRIDAY, AUGUST 4, 1911. THE FEDERALIST FOLLY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1197, 4 August 1911, Page 4

The Dominion. FRIDAY, AUGUST 4, 1911. THE FEDERALIST FOLLY.

Owing almost entirely to Sir •Joseph Ward's conception of government as a process the principal end of which is the maintenance in office of himself and his friends—a conception that has naturally increased each year his own and his party's absorption in small local affairs—the Parliament of this country has almost forgotten how to take any in- 1 terest in Imperial questions. Loudly as Sir Joseph Ward and his backers love to shout about the Imperialism of New Zealand—Sir Jchn Findlay, it will Ijo remembered, told Britain in effect that Englishmen were hopelessly dense in this respect compared with New Zealanders—our Parliament is alone amongst the Parliaments of the Empire in leaving the problems of the Empire undisclosed. In Canada, in Australia, and in South Africa Imperial issues are quite regular features of Parliamentary discussion. In the New Zealand Parliament nothing is more rare than any consideration, not to mention intelligent consideration, of any of the many aspects of Imperial life. Indeed, tho case is so bad, owing to the enormous multiplication of the local strings that the Government needs all its time to pull and adjust, that most people, and most members of Parliament, will have mildly wondered why Mr. Sinclair in the last Tuesday and Mr. Malcolm'in'the House last Wednesday "wasted" precious time, and space in Hansard, with "a lot of talk about Imperialism" when they could have been speaking about roads and bridges. Indeed, we should not bo a bit surprised if a good many of tho public and not a few of their fellow legislators explained the phenomenon to themselves by the theory that the two iontlomen named chose to talk of Imperialism because they are cranks! Mr. Sinclair and Me. Malcolm will 'probably agree with upon this point. It is deplorable and highly discreditable to the Government and to the Legislature that the two speeches referred to should seem oddly out of nla'ce.

For our part, we heartily congratulate both speakers,' and v;e should like them to peg away and persuade some of their fellows also to forget roads an I bridges now and then, While thus grateful to them for their endeavour to make Imperialism a live topic of discussion in Parliament, we arc fundamentally in disagreement with them in their view of Imperial policy. It is doubtless true, as Mr. Sinclair says, that "the trend is towards closer "unity," but it is an unwarrantable and arbitrary deduction that "to keep our position it must be by acting as a united whole in which the colonics would have a voice," and it is a sufficient reply to make an exactly contrary assertion. The colonies, Mi. Sinclair thinks, should be given a clearer voice on Imperial questions, and this he seems to suggest can bo secured by tho establishment of an Advisory Council. Above and before all things he 'places Imperial tariff preference. He did not say whether by v preference ho means an actual lowering o£ the tariffs as between Britain and tho Dominions or a mere raising of it against foieiipers; iv.d ■he neglected to go much beyond assertion .at any part of his speech. Mr. Malcolm approached the question in a mildly alarmist spirit, aid was far bolder, and therefore further astray than Mr. Sinclair in his suggestions'of a cure. He thinks that ''the time for drift in regard to the question of Imperial Federation has passed," as one who would say of a growing oak that the time, for drift in respect to it must come to an end. The opposition to Imperial . Federation he ascribes lo "timidity," and he advocates an Empire .Parliament "with representatives fram all the responsible Dominions." It was in meeting what ho calieci the "principal objection" that "New Zealand would never consent to bo taxed by an outside body" that Mr. Malcolm really revcaied some of the strongest points that can be made against him. "A Federal Parliament," he said, '.'would as truly represent New Zealand as that Parliament [the New Zealand Parliament] represented, say, Marlborough," and later on he said "there was a danger that national and State rights might! loom so large that tho Empire would become a thing of the past." There is a very vast difference between Marlborough's relation to the rest of Now Zealand and, say, Canada's relation to the rest of the Empire—differences involving great national, geographical, social, commercial, and economic, facts. The analogy fails at every point. And if there is a danger to the Empire in the latent forces of "national and State j lights," that surely is the best of ' reasons for leaving the Empire unfettered. If those rights—a more correct term would be "claims"—arc ever to tower to disruptive strength, disruption will come whatever is done cither now or then. All that can be said is that the fetters and

friction of Federation would ensure disruption in th.it case, and basti'd its coming.

As we have often said, the disiigrcemcis between sincere Federationists and sincere anti-Fcderation-isLs—employing the term Federation to cover all the various methods of artificial union—is rooted in a difference of temperament. The ease from history is all against the Fcderationists, and we do not think any satisfactory appeal to history has been made by them. The recent Conference, so valuable for its prompt and decisive treatment of mere ignorant charlatanry in Imperial controversy, has encouraged us to hope, and the best British comments upon the Conference have strengthened the hope, that the i.'orvous tendency to despair of a natural Empire has been checked. What is this "natural" Enpirc of ours, it may be asked, that ive will not have replaced by an Empire fitted with all the latest patents'! Well, it is the Empire that everybody has seen during the past three months to be a group of free and autonomous States to which the principle of practical co-operation can be applied with great richness and variety; an Empire that has every motive, practical and sentimental, for close cohesion; an Empire tho very blood of which is a consciousness of one race and one national tradition; and, finally, an Empire that shows its;-!? more clearly every year to stand in no need of the attention of the nervous people who arc worrying about it. Why should New Zealand desire a change ] What grievance does any Dominion suffer? Commercial , ! Britain adheres to Free-trade. National! Colonial autonomy is complete. Then perhaps it is that there must be a contract to ensure cohesion in timc_ of war? To this the answer is given in an interjection made during Mit. Malcolm's speech:' "Did we not have federation during the Boer war V The author of the interjection may not have known it. but he demolished the greater part of the Federalist case with his little question. The only real dangers the Empire has to face are those which are almost never thought of by the advocates of patent strait-jackets. The greatest is the danger of a weakening of the national fibre by the two greatest evils threatening AngleSaxondom, namely, the growth of the Socialistic spirii that stifles individual energy and self-reliance, and the tendency towards free-thought in morals. If we could only have directed against theso dangers the energy now going to waste in Federalist fancies! •