MR. CHAMBERLAIN ON IMPERIAL UNITY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXI, Issue 148, 23 June 1906, Page 6

MR. CHAMBERLAIN ON IMPERIAL UNITY.

BANQUET OF AUSTRALASIAN MERCHANTS. AN INTERESTING SPEECH. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, 11th May. Last Tuesday evening the annual banquet of the Australasian Merchants was held in London. About 250 people attended, including Mr. Joseph Chamberlain (who was in the chair), the High Commissioner for New Zealand, Mr. Harold Beauchamp, Mr. E. T. Doxat, Sir E. Montague Nelson, Mr. N. Balme, Mr. George Soodsir, Mr. Weddel, and other leading figures in the BritishAustralasian trade. The ex-Secretary of State for the Colonies, of course, made the speech of the evening in proposing the toast of the evening — "Prosperity of British Australasian Trade." Mr. Chamberlain had a most enthusiastic reception, of course, and for forty minutes he held the undivided attention of his listeners. ' In the course of his remarks ho urged the essential importance of a closer commercial union between the colonies and the Mpther Country, and, having noted that it would be almost necessary to create some council of the Empire to look after all the details of commercial interests, he proceeded to deal with the subject of Australasian trade. He said : "Here is our Australasian trade. How satisfactory! But I looked at the figures the other day, and what did I see? I found that the exports from this country to Australia alone increased from the average of the five years }%$> "X 4 , to the avor age of the five years 1900-04 by £2,700,000, or 14* per cent. Now, it will be said how satisfactory that is! And then there comes among us this political Cassandra who, with perhaps as little success as his prototype in gaining a hearing, nevertheless thinks it is his duty to warn his countrymen that, great as may be their present prosperity and the continual increase in their trade, yet the future >s not assured. Well, this is the point : What has happened during the same time with the trade done with Australia by our foreign competitors? Comparing the five years ended 1894 with the five i years ended 1904, 1 find that the average exports from foreign countries to Australia have risen by £6,400,000, or 122 per cent. In other words, there ie twice as much in amount and nearly nine times in percentage as the increaso from the United Kingdom. The case of New Zealand is not quite so bad. There, in the same years — in the comparison of the two periods of five years — British exports have risen by £2 - 700,000 a year and 74 per cent., but the trade with the foreigner has risen by £1,400,000 and 244 per cent. Well, is there any one of my opponents who has ever treated these figures impartially? Has any one of them ever asked himself the question, What is to happen to us or to our children twenty or thirty years hence if this steady continual progress of the trade of foreign countries as compared with that of the United Kingdom is to go on? "I say," continued Mr. Chamberlain, "wo are confronted with new conditions, and I ask whether we are so hidebound, so tied to an old fetish, that we cannot even consider that the possibility of a change of policy is necessary to meet the new condition of things? I balieve it is the opinion of some of our opponents abroad that we are not only a perfidious nation, but that we are a nation .of most surprising and Machiavellian acuteness ; but I cannot share that flattering appreciation. ('"Hear, hear," and a voice : "There is no sign of it.") There is no nation, I think, in the whole globe which has made so many mistakes, which has lost so many opportunities, and which has neverthe?ess been preserved from serious_ disaster. Look at our colonial policy ; lam afraid we never had one. (Laughter, and "Hear, hear.") We are the greatest colonising nation in tho world, but what can we say for ourselves as to foresight? Take Australia ; I do not know that it was at all special, but -we sent a. commissioner to examine into the value of it as a possible ground for colonisation, and this wise commissioner came home and said that, considering the climate and the soil, it was absolutely impossible to believe that it ever could be of the slightest use. We have, somehow or other, blundered into all the best places on the face of the earth. (Laughter.) But how long are we going to rest upon our luck?" After paying a high tribute to Australian statesmen, Mr. Chamberlain concluded : "I confess I am sometimes indignant at the language which is used occasionally by men here in some position of influence, who tell us that our colonies think only of themselves, make offers solely for their own advantage, that they are glad, enough to recive and unwilling to give, and that our interests, deserving, of course, as they are of equal consideration, would be sacrificed in any negotiations with our colonies. The statement is absolutely untrue. The real fact is that our colonial statesmen have been able to perceive rather earlier than the people and the statesmen of this country that in a mutual agreement of this kind, and without sacrifice ov either side, or at all events without anything more than a temporary and insignificant sacrifice, we might create a great self-sustaining Empire, that might transfer some of the vast trade which now goes into foreign hands to enrich foreign competitor's — we might transfer it with advantage to our own people and for our mutual good, and that we might do something to divert the flow of emigration and the flow of trade from the foreigner to our own people, and that thereby we might strengthen the Empire and unite the British race. (Cheers.) In proposing this toast these are the things I have in my mind. I most heartily wish for the prosperity of trade between this country and Australasia, I hope it may conduce to the prosperity of both; I trust that everything which, ensures to the good of Australia may ensure also to the good j of the British race throughout the world, and that under wise statesmanship, which \ I venture to anticipate on both sides, these considerations, translated into fact, may secure that closer union and that I greater strength which caD alone enable the Empire, and the several parts which constitute the Empire to maintain the British influence unon the civilisation and peace of the world." Commenting upon Mr. Chamberlain's speech, the Evening Standard says : "The present occupants of the Colonial' Office — we hate to describe them as Secretary and Under-Secretary, because such distinctions are vain — might save themselves from numerous mistakes if they would imbibe a little of the spirit distinctive of Mr. Chamberlain's speech to the Australasian merchants in London. Mr. Chamberlain recognises what Lord Elgin and Mr. Churchill do not recognise : that the colonies have grown up and are no longer feeble children dependent on their mother for all the necessaries of life. While he sees that they have earned the right to be described as* 'sister states of the United Kingdom,' he suggests that they are oversensitive in objecting to be called 'colonies.' The unthinking objector remarks that there's nothing in a name. Indeed, there is very little. But our insistence on terms and conditions irritates tl}e 'sister status' into a notion that in their case the name carries too much subordination with it. The colonies 'must remember that they have grown too big to be careful of petty things.' But we, on our j>art. must remember that they, have

grown too big to be treated in petty ways." The Globe says that Mr. Chamberlain's remark that "somehow or another wfc have blundered into the best places on the face of the earth" is well borne out by facts; "but when he spoke contemptuously of the commission that last century reported of Australia that 'considering the climate and the soil, it was absolutely impossible- to believe that it ever could be of the slightest use,' it is only fair to remember that they were not alone in their blunder. Dampier, the first Englishman who visited the Antipodes, saw nothing but root-eating savages and a strange animal that jumped with its hind legs, and lie reported that the soil was no better than a de6ert. . . Darwin, who visited both (Australia, and New Zealand) in the Beagle, thought New Zealand dismal, and declared in his diary that he left Australia without affection, and without regret. In fact, had it not been for railways it is hardly likely the continent would even yet have been settled beyond easy reach of the coast."