A GOOD CASE

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 124, 21 November 1925, Page 13

A GOOD CASE

FOR IMPERIAL FEDERAL PARLIAMENT PLEA BY THE HON. A, S. MALCOLM, M.L.C. ARTICLE IN THE "NINETEENTH CENTURY." (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, 9th October. The Hon. A. S. Malcolm contributes the first article in the October number of "The Nineteenth Century," and deals with a subject which has been under consideration off and,on for a. great number of years. It is the old question of the Federation of the British Empire and the representation of the Dominions in an Imperial Federal Parliament. Although one would have thought that everything had been said on $his subject, Mr. Malcolm makes out a good case. What is more, he has for his data the deficiencies that are evident and the complications that have arisen under the lack of constitution during the past ten or fifteen years. He attacks many of the old arguments against a definite Imperial constitution, and does so with considerable effect. He maintains that there are dangers in the present situation. The first of these is that in the executive sense of the word we have no Empire. There is no person . or body that can speak for the. Empire or put it in action. "Even the Imperial Conferences j

tioiis come to at the Conferences. But, however unreasonable the feeling may be, there is apt to be some annoyance on -the part of those who favour resolutions that are discarded. They usk: 'If they won't tako our opinions why do they call us together?' " It is further pointed' out that a Prime Minister goes to the Conferences as representing in each case cither Britain or a Dominion, If anything goes wrong the country responsible for the mischance, and not the school of thought, is blamed. In this way nation is put against nation within the Empire. HOW THE DANGER COULD BE AVERTED. "Now, if the Dominion representatives could go home, not specifically as representing Dominions, but as representing schools of thought, or, as we more of ten call them, political parties, such a danger would be averted. In the recent instance not .Britain but the free-traders would be blamed. In ether cases . the Little Englauders, or, as might be the case, the Jingoes, would be blamed. Within the Empire nation would not be set against nation. Party might quarrel with party without endangering the Empire, and if the delegations were big enough, delegates from the same Dominion, or from Britain, would ha found taking different sides. The present system tends to set the territorial units of the Empire one against the other.' This matter needs stressing, as it is a real source of danger." In much the same Way trouble is likely to-arise from.the "consultation" on foreign affairs. "How often, even in private life, deep offence is felt by a man who has given an opinion on a' matter on which he has aright to be consulted, and'finds, his opinion ignored! If the same man were on a board of directors, and after expressing his opinions had a ■vote taken, and found the matter decided and settled against him, he

tho Dominions have no powers ' in regard to foreign affairs. We are 'consulted, '■ but we have no 'authority.' Under Imperial Federation our representatives would be members of the body that would control foreign affairs." ANOTHER FALLACY. "Another objection to Imperial Federation is stated thus: 'We cannot allow ourselves to be taxed by any outside body.' Ihe fallacy hers lies in speaking of a Federated Imperial Parliament as 'an outside body.' It would not be an outside body. To each of the Dominions the Imperial Parliament would be 'our' Parliament. Their representatives would hs.ve a place in it. A citizen of Colorado, when he pays taxes to his Federal Government —to the United States—does not complain that he is taxed by an 'outside body.' The Government of the United States is his, and he glories in it." "Does a Durbanite consider the South "African Federal Parliament 'an outside body'? Is a Queenslander any the less an Australian because he has his own State Parliament? If the British Empire had a Federal ParUumcnt as •the people of Canada, of South Africa,' of Australia, ali eady have > that Parliament would be as much ' his own Government to every person in Britain and the Dominions as is the present Australian Federal Government to any Australian. Oddly enough, this fact, patent though it is, is not realised. The reason probably is that in the so-called Imperial Parliament really *mly the British Parliament the Dominions so far have had no representation, and so little by little' have conrfe to look upon it as an alien, almost a foreign, body. Give the Dominions representation .in it, or, better still, in, a specially created Imperial Federal Parliament, and that Parliament would cease to be alien. It: would be 'ours,' and we would

vcrsally recognised. But, instead of following the blazed trail our statesmen in Britain and the Dominions follow this and that and the other unexplored track, and, of course, become bogged or lost. They try any and every way except the one way that has been proved for a hundred years and more to lead to success. That way they will not put a foot upon. "There are a few who urge that the : Federal solution will not apply to the British Empire because the units of the British Empire are separated from one another by the sea, whereas the territories of all previously federated States are contiguous. Students are agreed that this would make Imperial Federation easier—not more difficult. In all Federations the one great difficulty is to reconcile State Bights with Federal Eights. Where does the one end and the other begin? ... In the British Empire the sea happily settles this matter for us. Each of the units of the Empire is self-contained. The sea has drawn a ring round it. All the matters that concern only' the peoples within each of those rings are' for their own,management and settlement. These are State or Dominion Eights. Matters that concern them all, such as War, Diplomacy, and Defence, can by common consent be left to the common or Federal . Government.". , ' A REPRESENTATIVE CONFER- ' ENCE. Finally, the writer suggests ". that a widely-spread conference should be called—"a conference,'for preference, that would b*e elected by the peoples themselves, but if that were considered impossible, a conference that would represent all shades of opinion in Britain and in each, of the Dominions, a conference to| which the Dominions would be asked to send men specially qualified, and not necessarily Parliamentarians. Could