EMPIRE CO-OPERATION

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 264, 4 August 1936, Page 8

EMPIRE CO-OPERATION

Mr. R. G. Menzies, Australian Attorney-General, is convinced from his experience in London that more systematic co-operation is necessary between Britain and the Dominions in matters of general policy affecting the Empire as a whole. The time for Imperial consultation, he declares, is before, not after, great decisions are made. This was made abundantly clear when the question of invoking the sanctions of the League of Nations Covenant against Italy arose. The Empire peoples were in agreement on the principle that British foreign policy should have as its mainspring the whole-hearted support of the League of Nations and the defence of the Covenant; on the question of applying sanctions opinions were divided. This demonstrates that general approval of a principle is not enough. What is required is unanimity of opinion concerning the line of policy to be followed in contingencies arising from the application of the principle. It is vital, if the integrity of the British Commonwealth is to be assured, that there should be exchanges of views from which may be crystallised common principles of action. But there can be no such exchanges in the real sense unless and until the Dominions by careful study of the general international situation and their own special circumstances and interests, formulate opinions that can be discussed at the Imperial Round Table. The British temperament is characteristically disinclined to explicit commitments in foreign affairs. This attitude is due to an inherent belief that policy should be adapted to circumstances instead of seeking to control them: that it should seek its ends by negotiation rather than by aggressiveness. Hence the difficulty of formulating hard-and-fast decisions that would bind the Empire as a whole to preconcerted action. Nevertheless there is in this somewhat nebulous system a constant danger that when the need for making a rapid decision arises it may catch the Dominions unprepared. For example, they were agreed on economic sanctions against Italy before they quite realised that without force these were liable to be ineffective. The Imperial secretaria* suggested by Mr. Menzies is much the same in principle as the Counci' of Empire proposed by the late Sir Joseph Ward at one of the earlier Imperial Conferences. But it would not be a satisfactory solution of the problem unless it were made the clearing house of the individual opinions of the Commonwealth nations, and these, as Mr. Menzies points put, are not easily ascertainable.