AN EMPIRE PROBLEM

Evening Post, Volume XCI, Issue 84, 8 April 1916, Page 4

AN EMPIRE PROBLEM

Lord Crewe's speech at the luncheon given by the National Liberal Club in honour of the High Commissioners for Canada, South Africa, and New Zealand sounds a note of caution which will certainly not be taken amiss in New Zealand, nor, we should imagine, in any other of the oversea Dominions'. The revolution that the fellowship in this great war has produced in the attitude of the Liberals and Radicals of Great Britain towards the Dominions is something to be thankful for. In quarters where talk about the Empire was once regarded with distrust on account of the suspicion that dark projects of "militarism" and jingoism and protection were concealed by its glittering generalities, the Empire is now regarded with gratitude and pride, and the ' maintenance of its unity is seen to be a condition of the security and pi'ogress of all its parts. The old theory that the colonies are like the fruit which in the fulness of time is destined to fall without a wrench or a pang from the parent tree, is giving place to the idea that the Dominions are rather the new branches of the British oak, which are just as necessary for the full development of its powers as the old ones or the roots. This change of view is of the happiest possible augury for the future of the Empire, which, under the enervating influences of unbroken peace and a too-cheaply won prosperity, might have gradually realised the ideal of a painless disintegration. The shock of war has now braced it into a unity of sentiment from which it will be the duty of its statesmen to develop a compact and abiding Imperial structure. But, though this sentiment has supplied a condition essential to their success in this task, it. has not supplied the solution of the problem, and there is a risk that, under the spell of sentiment, we may be too submissive to its power, and expect more from it than it can reasonably be expected to perform. Imperial unity, or at any rate the only kind of Imperial unity that is valued by the people of our race, may be in the main a matter of the heart, but a cool head is just as necessary as a warm heart for the permanent settlement of the Imperial problem. .We must not allow sentiment, however exalted, to usurp the place of thought.

To confine these two faculties to their proper spheres is not always easy, and it is especially difficult at a time of such intense, emotion as that which has been sent pulsing through the Empire by the perils and the glories and the sorrows of the struggle in which it has been for nearly two years engaged. Hatred for the Germans,, or at least for German wickedness, and sympathy with men of our own race and allegiance throughout the world, are now the dominant emotions in every breast. So potent is their sway that they inevitably colour the action of the hour, yet it would be contrary to reason and experience if we were to attempt to base a permanent policy upon the assumption that they will always retain their present force. Bonds might be drawn under the influence of these emotions which would afterwards be found to chafe, and barriers might be erected which, when we had had time to cool, would prove an inconvenient or even intolerable obstruction. The Empire would then be in the unpleasant position described by the poet—we quote from memory—

For tasks in hours of insight willed Must be in hours of gloom fulfilled. It behoves us, therefore, to walk warily, even towards the goal of fiscal union, which seems to colonial impatience so obvious and so easily accessible. Lord Crewe's speech at the National Liberal Club was therefore well timed, and well deserving of the attention both of the Dominion High Commissioners and of their constituents. Great Britain is not afraid, he said, to confer with the daughter States on the possibilities' of fiscal vjinion—another confirmation of the welcome relaxing of the strictness of Free Trade in the interests of closer union. Lord Crewo freely concedes that Imperial relations must be reconsidered in the light of the convulsion which is affecting the relations of the whole world. This, too, we are glad to get; but let us also concede that Lord Crewe has justice on his side when he nays that "the most ardent evangelist of the new fiscal system of the union of the Empire would admit that it could only be reached by surmounting great difficulties affecting not only the different parts of the Empire, but also the exterior relations of the Empire and other countries." It is indeed an immense and intricate question, and the idea of settling it, or any essential part of it, in the course of a five-minutes' conversation round a table in Paris is worthier of the hustlers in the Nbrthcliffe press, than of sober statesmanship. Let the Dominions not assist these hustlers in their endeavour to bounce the British Government into the new policy, or, in the alternative, to break the happy political truce which is essential to success in the only war that matters. Sir Thomas Mackenzie was better employed in pleading generally at the National Liberal Club for the right of the Dominions to a full share in the Imperial partnership than he was a few days ago when he came perilously near to party politics by breaking a lance with Sir W. Lever on the question of Free Trade.

Though Mr. Frederic Coleman, war lecturer, has not been actively engaged in journalistic work for some years, he, in common with all who have trod the inky way, retains an interest in men and things of the newspaper. world. Yesterday afternoon he met some twenty to thirty Wellington journalists at the Grand Hotel. After his health had been toasted, at the request of Mr. F. J. Earle (president of the Institute' of Journalists), Mr. Coleman talked in his charming, informal way of the days when he worked from San Francisco to the Philippines, to China, aud to London. He touched lightly, also, on the experiences of journalists in the present wsr as he f from the ranks of tho combatant*. «*w thus.thing*.