Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1907. BRITISH AND COLONIAL RELATIONS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIII, Issue 31, 6 February 1907, Page 6

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1907. BRITISH AND COLONIAL RELATIONS.

To an interviewer at Melbourne Sir Joseph Ward indulged in the stereotyped complaint of the ignorance and indifference of the British Government with regard to colonial affairs without administering that wholesome corrective to be indifference and vanity of the colonies with which he hae been recently in the habit of accompanying it. "We have Americans and Germans right under our lee," he says, "a positive menace to us," though 'if they had gat to windward of us tho result would surely have been more menacing still. "The British Government lets them take all the best harbours in Samoa and control the South Pacific. It is a matter of vital importance both to New Zoaland and Australia. But tho British Government does not see this, because it is ignorant of the interests involved." Sir Joseph Ward'B discovery of the American menace must be a comparatively new one, seeing that for years he has been* a patty to tho giving of our chief mail contract to an American line which bars British ships, and is under an obligation to supply its own vessels in case of war to tho United States Government to serve as light cruisers ov transports. As for the British Government, wo are not concerned to defend it against a charge of negligonco in Samoa or elsewhere, but we aro bound to acknowledge a good deal of sympathy with a critic who cannot be accused of any sentimental tenderness towards thit Government. When Mr. Deakin and others were denouncing the British Government for approving an agreement which continued tho dual control of the New Hebrides, the Bulletin urged that the departure of Franco from the Islands would mean tho removal of another barrier between Australia and the Yellow Poril. If France, Germany, and the United States abandoned their respective interests in tho New Hebrides, New Guinea, Samoa, and the Philippines to-morrow, it is surely obvious that the policy of a White Australia would be exposed to far graver dangers than before. But whether the peril that th««e colonies have the beat reason for dreading is the aggression of China and Japan, or of some while Power, the moral which Sir Joseph Ward has recently been drawing for our benefit would have equally well borne repeating in Australia, viz., that the colonies will have a better right to call upon the Empire to take up their quarrels and safeguard their territories when they havo organised an adequate system of home defence, and undertaken their fair chare in the common defence besides. We trust that in the Old Country, as in New Zealand, our Premier will not forget to season hia railing at the Imperial. Government with reminders to his fellow-colonists of their own shortcomings in the same matter. Not an armed Australia but a Council of Advice, w«a urged by Sir Joseph Ward as the remody for tne blunders complained of. "The council will be uaeful," he said, ''ir regard to protecting our rights to exclude aliens when tivsaties are being made. Tho council could keep our views before the GoToTnmenl of the day." Some formal method of consultation on the chief matters of common concern has become a necessity of the Empire, but much, if not everything, depends upon how it io attempted. ( 'I say nothing as to what tha possible constitution of this Imperial Council may be," was all that Sir Joseph Ward had to tell tho House on tho subject, and his remarks in Melbourne leave all the practical difficulties dtill untouchfd. Is there to be a Council representing the whole Empire in constant session in London? or in tho Conference of Premiers, which in 1897 and 1802 was called the Colonial Conference, and has now , become the Imperial Conference, to devolop into an Imperial Council which can only meet at long intervals but will bo in cbnstant communication by letter and cable? The latter is certainly tha safer schemo, since it will keep the several responsible heads of the various executives of the Empire in close touch with one another, and will avoid the risk of the usurpation of power by an ornamental, irresponsible, and unrepresentative body. Tho distinction is a vital ons, but neither our Parliament nor our Premier appears as yet to have given it n thought. While posing as the censors of the slipshod fashion in which tho Empire is run, we admirably illustrate that fashion ourselves by sending our representative to London without giving him any instructions as to the remedy, or ascertaining whether he has any definite views of his own.