Evening Post. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1913.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 49, 27 February 1913, Page 6

Evening Post. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1913.

THE HARCOURT DESPATCH We indicated yesterday in a general way the great significance of Mr. Harcourt's despatch, ( which, though it reached the Premier by, the 11th December, and he knew that it was to be published in London on the 3rd January, was not available for New Zealand readers till me arrival of the English mail six weeks later. When Mr. Churchill in March last issued his general invitation to the Dominions to apply for representation on / the Committee of Imperial Defence, the announcement was taken to represent a marked advance on the "non possumus" attitude adopted by the representatives of Great Britain at the last Imperial Conference, especially by Mr. Asquith himself, towards the idea of closer Imperial union. "Candour compels me to say," says Sir John Findlay, in his review of tha Conference, "that in his general bearing towards Si|r Joseph Ward's proposals, Mr. Asquith showed himself possessed of very Httlfe sympathy with any political or constitii'tional changes aiming at an organised and closer Imperial unity. I am sure that he, at .least, left that impression upon every member of the Conference, and that it was in some measure duo to this that Sir Joseph Ward's scheme did not obtain more willing and sympathetic consideration from the Oversea representatives." We certainly cannot blame Mr. Asquith for being somewhat scared either by Sit* Joseph Ward's resolution in favour of an Imperial Council or by the arguments in favour of a representative Imperial Parliament With which he supported it. The slapdash fashion in which Sir Joseph Ward submitted his case was, indeed, admirably qualified to alienate so accurate, logical, and unemotional a mind as Mr. Asquith's. Consider the paralysing effect upon, such an intellect of snch an interchange as the following, which took place 'in the course of Sir Joseph Ward's f speech in support of his resolution : — tc Tho President (Mr. Asquith) : Just a Tho words used in your resolu-tion-are, c An Imperial Council of State 1 j you spoke just nowt>f an Imperial Parliament of Defence. I do not find any •Such phrase in the resolution. Sir Joseph Ward : I do not mind what the /name is— an Imperial Council of State, *ov an Imperial Parliament of Defence, or a Defence Council. The President : They aro practically synonymons, yonthink? Sir Joseph Ward : Yes." Mr. Asquith is not endowed with thft faculty of gush, and it is not to be wondered at if his -manner was congealed 'to frost by such hopeless fumbling with a proposal which, under the most favourable conditions, was bound to arouse his critical instinct. We are, however, satisfied by Mr. Harcourt's despatch that »Mr. Asquith's attitude was not the universal negative that a hasty reader of Sir John Findlay's book might suppose. It true that an ideal reform presented in ,a loos© and confused fashion failed entirely either to command his sympathy or to draw from him any alternative suggestion of a positive kind. Bnfc the proposal to winch Mr. Harconrt was allowed to commit the British Government with regard to tho Imperial Defence Committee shows a readiness on the part of his chief to take what we regard as one •of tho most promising steps towards an effective Imperial union that have ever been taken. The fact that the Defence -Committee is unknown to the Constitution .and has merely advisory functions does not in the least detract from the value oi the significance of tho British Government's offer. It iv in strict accordance Avith tho methods of our political ,6Vgltttiou that sucli a. fitojj.sbguy bo ir^;

formal anrl tentative. Is not the British Cabinet itself, which controls the foreign policy of the whole Empire, still informal and unknown to the Constitution, though it passed its tentative stage move than a century ago? Let us beware of supposing that Imperial evolution is not to be served by exactly the same methods which have characterised the constitutional evolution of Great Britain herself, and adapted the machihery of her Government from time to time to the varying needs of the nation. The critics who have been propounding conundrums about the anomaly of putting colonial representatives on a body appointed by the British Government, to give it pri' vate advice which it is perfectly free to ignore, or the exact relation of the committee when thus enlarged to the Imperial Conference, have, in our opinion, been beating the air. The Imperial Conference does very good work, once in four years, but in ths Imperial Defence, Committee we have a working institution which is in the closest possible touch from day to day with the gravest and most fundamental problems of Empire. Nobody has yet indicated a better way of bringing the Dominions into intimate touch with those problems than through the Defence Committee. The door ha* been thrown open by the British Government ; Canada is about to enter ; and we trnst that one result of Mr. Allen's visit to London will be that New Zealand will speedily follow her example. It is upon the effectiveness of its defences that the very existence of the Empire depends. It is only through a knowledge of the problems of defence and a participation in the responsibility for its burdens that the Dominions can qualify for a full share in the Imperial partnership. Co-operation on the Imperial Defence Committee is the best preparation for such a partnership that has yet been suggested. * „