Evening Post. FRIDAY, AUGUST 12, 1921. THE CROWN AND THE EMPIRE

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 37, 12 August 1921, Page 6

Evening Post. FRIDAY, AUGUST 12, 1921. THE CROWN AND THE EMPIRE

If the address which at the close of-.the Imperial Conference the assembled Prime Ministers forwarded to the King was necessarily of a more or less formal character, the same cannot be said of His Majesty's reply. ' It is as far rermoved as possible from the stiffness and coldness which are commonly associated with the official style. It is a genuinely human document, instinct with real feeling and making no endeavour to conceal it: The satisfaction expressed in the opening sentence with the loyal devotion expressed by the members of the Conference to the King and the N Throne was of course inevitable, but there is something quite informal aboj.it the warmth and colour which pervade the rest of the document. " Still more am I gratified," His Majesty proceeds, " at their Expressed cortviction that the Crown is an important link in uniting together with cohesion and strength the component parts of our gi'eat Empire." It was the discovery of this fact that created the great reaction in favour of the Crown from the unpopularity which it had acquired in the early years of Queen Victoria's widowhood. The development of Imperial sentiment during the last forty years has been accompanied by a steadily increasing recognition of the value of the Crown as the centre of the Imperial system. Even English Radicalism has ceased to coquet, as it once did, with the idea of a Republic, and in all the Dominions but South Africa such doctrine is still more hopelessly out of date, since the Crown is seen to unite us to the Empire which , guarantees our safety and independence in a way •that no elected officer could ever do. •■■.■•

It may perhaps be said that if the- appreciation of the Crown as a link of Empire has recently erred at all in the Dominions ii has been on the side rather of excess than of defect. While the irreconcilable Boers are against the Crown because they are against the Empire, General Smuts has i surely been claiming too much for the Crown when he has argued' that it is so powerful and all-sufficing a bond that it can hold the Empire even on the basis of the legal sovereignty of the Dominions and the extension of their independence from domestic to foreign policy. The application of this doctrine would subject the Crown and the Empire to a strain which they could not possibly beay. The maxim that the Kjng reigns but does not govern applies equally to foreign and to domestic policy.,, In the ; latter, sphere no conflict; arises under an arrangement which makes the Hoyal power exercisabje in each of the Dominions on the advice of a Government and Parliament responsible to the people of that Dominion. This division of domestic policy into water-tight compartments prevents any conflict of authority, and the Crown is not put in the cleft stick of contradictory advice from authorities of equal competence. But it is perfectly clear that foreign policy cannot be partitioned in the same way. .

As Mr. Downie Stewart has pointed out, the doctrine that the King can do no .wrong is based upon the assumption that the King always acts, upon the advice of those who are prepared to take the responsibility for what he does in pursuance of it. But if, for example, in a war between Japan and the United States, the Ministers of one of his self-governing States advised him to declare war against Japan, those of another were for war agaiust the United States, while a third set insisted upon neutrality, what would be the duty of the King? and how much would-be left of the doctrine that he can do no wrong? The King's inability to do wrong would be replaced in these circumstances by his inability to do right. General Smuts's constitutional theory would make it possible for different parts of the Empire to be at ' war and at peace respectively with the same foreign Power at the same time, but such a state of things is plainly irreconcilable with their continuing to be parts of the same Empire or subject to the same Crown. Our hypothetical case shows that a multiplicity of foreign policies will ineyitably split tl^e Empire into a corresponding number of parts, and that if it is to remain united it cannot afford to have more than one foreign policy.

Of this danger, to which a few months ago the Empire seemed to

be drifting, very little has been publicly said at the Imperial Conference s and, largely perhaps as the result of Mr. Hughes's passionate plea for unity, it appears to have received a salutary check. The opposite danger was referred to by Mr. Massey in his review of the work of the Conference. There seemed at first, he,said, to be. " an idea amongst a small section of the public in the"-. Dominions that the United Kingdom representatives intended to interfere in some unexplained way with the autonomy of the younger nations." Mr Massey brushed this suggestion aside as devoid of a scintilla of truth. Though New Zealand had no such apprehensions, Mr. Massey's emphatic reputation may be of service in Canada and South Africa. The danger of an unrepresentative centralisation at this time of day is imaginary. The danger of pushing the theory of Dominion sovereignty too far was a real one. In affirming its " deep conviction that the ,whole weight of the Empire should be concentrated behind a united understanding and common action in foreign affairs," and the need for closer consultation, the Imperial Conference took the middle course of safety and prudence. The Empire is not yet ready for a new constitution, and must make the best for the present *of the existing machinery.