FOR THE EMPIRE. Evening Post. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1910.

Evening Post, Volume LXXX, Issue 94, 18 October 1910, Page 6

FOR THE EMPIRE.

Evening Post. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1910.

The spasmodic attempts which have | been made by private members during the present session to secure the attention of the House of Representatives to Imperial questions have not hitherto met with official favour, but there is one Imperial question of an eminently practical kind which will shortly present itself and admit of no postponement or evasion— How is this country to be represented at the Coronation ? The importance of the question will be denied by nobody except a negligible handful of irreconcilables, and its urgency is apparent when we note that the Oororation will take place in June, and that Parliament will, in, ordinary course, rise in five or six iveeks' time, and not sit again till after the ceremony is over. The position is complicated for New Zealand by the fact that a general election falls due in November or December of next year. If our representatives at the Coronation have also to attend to the work of Parliament, it will be plainly impossible to hold next session at the usual time, or even to extend it to the usual length. To summon Parliament before the Coronation is held is plainly out of the question. The financial year does not close till the 31st .March, and within a month after that our representatives must have taken tUciv departure fgr tb.B Ooropatioja, Qju,,

the other hand, as they will not return till August, a date in that month will be the earliest for which Parliament can be summoned, unless Parliament is to go on its way without them. With a general election in November or December the session could not possibly be prolonged beyond October, which means that it could .not last more than two months. It will be on this ground that the Opposition may argue that whatever arrangements are made for the Coronation must not interfere vrith. the ordinary work of the House. It is. certainly unfortunate that twice in the course of a single Parliament its work should be suspended by the demands of Imperial business. Last year we joined •with the Opposition in objecting to the suspension, on the grounds that Parliament had exceptionally important and argent work to perform, and that the country could be adequately represented at the Defence Conference without any postponement. The circumstances of the present case appear to us to be entirely different, and not merely to justify but to necessitate a similar course to that which was taken lasfc year. The occasion for which our Parliament now has to provide is an Imperial event .-of the very first importance. We are quite aware that the King is not a Kaiser- or a. Tsar, bat a. consfcifcnfciojaal monarch j that the practical work of legislation and administration throughout the Empire i» carried on by local Parliaments who are the choice of tho local electors, and by the executives which they approve; and that the attempt to exercise the Royal prerogative as a superior or rival power would bring the throne to inevitable wreck. But we also realise that though the maxim that the King reigns but does not govern remains as true to-day as it ever -was, the importance of the Crown has not diminished but increased with the expansion of the Empire and the development of autonomy in its 6everal parts. The reason is that with that expansion and development the daughter States have outgrown the leading strings of the so-called Imperial Parliament, and have learned to look more directly and more intently to the Crown as the constitutional link which unites them all to the Mother Country and to one another, the symbol and the pledge of Imperial unity, the focus and rallying point of Imperial sentiment. There is in effect no Imperial Parliament, but there is an Imperial throne, and those patriots who are least disposed to be by pomp and pageantry -.nay therefore reasonably join in a purely utilitarian spirit with their more demonstrative fellow-citizens in making the utmost of such an event as the Coronation. The sentiment of loyalty to the throne and Imperial unity will not make a sufficient substitute for ships and men on the day of Armagedfcon, but the assiduous fostering of that sentiment is one essential means of preparing the Empire, and especially its outlying parts, against that evil day, and of ripening a sentimental unity into an organic unity for : the purposes of the common defence. The ceremony which is to take place in London next June is, therefore, one of which every patriot is concerned to enhance the impressiveness; and we should be sorry to see the New Zealand Oppositiou prevented by any partisanship or parochialism from rising to the greatness of tho argument. The desire of the King and his advisers to broaden tha appeal of the Coronation ceremonies to the Empire is shown by the inclusion for the first time of members O f the colonial Parliaments among the guests of the nation. The Commonwealth is being invited to send eighteen members, and New Zealand eight. Whether the selection is to be made by the Parliaments themselves or not, it is clear, that the Leader of the Opposition must in any case be among the number. Lasfc year the suggestion was made that Mr Massey should accompany Sir Joseph Ward as one of New Zealand's representatives to. the Defence Conference, but it was not favourably regarded either by Mr. Massey or by a majority of his party, and nothing came of it. On the present occasion we trust that the Opposition will, be as one man in realising that to send Mr. Massey and any other 01 their number to whom the chance may offer, and to facilitate in every possible way the general arranaements for the ceremony, regardless of party tactics, is a duty which they owe to their country and to the Empire. The educative value which experience ehould have for the visiting niembers, the inspiration with winch it should provide them, the broad--eaing of their outlook upon the Empire, and the correcting of their sense of Imperial perspective are advantages for which all partiea should be thankful to seize the opportunity. For a similar reason the offer which the Premier mentions of some three hundred volunteers to go to London to attend the Coronation at tneir own expense should also be promptly accepted. The Premier is "not prepared to say whether it would be fair to accept individual eacrifice of this kind," but after he has discussed the matter with his colleague** we trust that they wiU all see that as the choice will be between the men going on these terms or not going at aUj there. should b* no hesitation. The country will have enough to pay for without this additional burden, and should therefore jump at the otter. We hope to »co tho politicians imitating the patriotic of these volunteers, and laying aside all different-en in order that a great Imperial occasion may be celebrated in a mafmer y;mi] of t]je Empire to whifh *c all belony.