"ALL FOR ONE, AND ONE FOR ALL"

Evening Post, Volume CI, Issue 150, 25 June 1921, Page 4

"ALL FOR ONE, AND ONE FOR ALL"

"England is yielding," says the Petit Journal of Paris, apropos of the Imperial Conference, " but not losing prestige." The remark is apt. Continuously throughout the last twenty years Britain has been yielding power to her daughter States, and with each step in .the process she has gained vboth prestige and strength. •• To German eyes the process spelled merely weakness and decadence. The British Empire to them was a crazy structure, with no more coherence than a pack of cards which was ready ti) collapse before a breath from the All-Highest at Potsdam. But this delusion of German omniscience, and not the British Empire, was shattered by the Great War. The wisdom of the policy of local autonomy which British policy had encouraged all round the world was shown by the enthusiasm with which the Dominions threw themselves into a- war that was none of their making. It was not Britain's war from their point of view, but their war, or at any rate it was as much theirs as hers. Nothing but a freedom and a sympathy which had infinitely stronger sanctions than any formal bonds could have produced ..this wonderful result. ' ,

There has recently, however, been a tendency on the part of some of the Dominions to push this pi-ocess too far, and-to suppose that it is impossible to have too much of a good thing.' With a wearisome monotony we hear of the.absolute equality of status between ' Britain and the Dominions, of the full share of the Dominions in the Imperial partnershipj and even of the absolute independence implied by their membership of the League of Nations. What is too commonly overlooked is that a real independence would entail infinitely more arduous, costly, and dangerous responsibilities than those of autonomy within the British Empire, and that, even as members of the Imperial partnership, the Dominions, while enjoying- full rights, are still shirking a very large proportion of the liabilities of the firm. Ie is time that this one-sided Imperialism was stopped, and it is for the Dominions to make the move. Hitherto the give-and-take process of the Empire has been one of giving on the part of the Mother Country and of taking on, the part of the Dominions. We must haye1 a fair deal in future under which duties as well/ as rights will be equitably shared. " All for one and one for all " is said to have been the .general tenor of the opening speeches at the Conference. Let us hope that its actions will be as good as its words, and that nobody will be able to say that the real policy of the Dominions is "Each for itself and Britain for us all."