Evening Post. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1930. THE RIGHT OF PARTNERSHIP

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 78, 29 September 1930, Page 8

Evening Post. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1930. THE RIGHT OF PARTNERSHIP

If the Imperial Conference does I nothing else, it will at least have I rendered New Zealand a valuable ! service by its contributions to' the education of our Prime Minister. Before the opening of the session we had occasion to complain of the painful parochialism which distinguished his utterances on the great Imperial problem of defence. But a few weeks later the general excellence of his statement on the Imperial Conference agenda indicated that the prospect of his new responsibilities had already widened his outlook, and that the parish pump was no longer obscuring his view of the Empire so dangerously as it had previously appeared to do. On his way across. the Pacific Mr. Forbes has evidently turned to the best possible advantage those opportunities for further qualifying himself for his mission by . study and contemplation which the leisure of the voyage provided. So well did he use them that during'those''three weeks he seems to have acquired some of those qualities which are usually the. fruits of a long and highly-specialised experience. Such was the impression made upon an impartial witness as soon as he set foot in Canada.

He looks like a fighter, said the "Vancouver Sun," and acts like one, "with .all the poise and self-possession of a European diplomat.

It was a delightful idea that our simple-minded farmer-Premier had picked up all this equipment on his way to Vancouver, and he will doubtless need it all before he has concluded his negotiations with Mr. Bennett about Canada's latest freak in British preference which threatens our butter with virtual prohibition.

lii London also, Mr. Forbes has made an excellent impression, but it is of1 a different kind, and as it is less' unlike the Mr. Forbes who left 'New Zealand last month it is more likely to last. Previously unknown in London persoiially, Mr. Forbes received at Waterloo Station a welcome worthy of his official position, and of the position that his predecessors had helped New Zealand to win in the estimation of the British people. The New Zealand Colony in London was well represented. Our High Commissioner was,, of course, there, and almost equally, of course, the indefatigable Secretary for Dominion Affairs, Mr. J. H. Thomas, was also there. Mr. Forbes had no high-sounding or elaborate message, to deliver, nothing in the least suggestive of the poise or the self-posses-sion or the Wiles of a European diplomat. Just as Mr. Coates had told the House of, Representatives that New Zealand" would bring to the Imperial Conference of 1926 "no spirit of carping criticism, no disposition to split points of privilege or of status," s,o Mr. Forbes had told the House last month that "we have no complaints and no demands," and his first utterance in London was in the same vein: Wo do nob bring any cut-and-dried proposals. We have no memorandum to submit to the Conference. We recognise Britain's present difficulties, and are anxious to join in any measnres benefiting both her and New Zealand. While Britain is already taking most of our exports, meat, butter, cheese, aud other commodities, we can supply much larger quantities. Though we import most of our requirements from Britain, we are anxious to increase ,the proportion. New Zealand 5s doing very well, but wants to do better. ' i

In his second utterance which was reported on Saturday, he .made more particular reference to the constitutional issues which, as Mr.' Scullin says,! are likely to share with economic issues the vgreater part of the attention of the Conference.

New Zealand has never pressed for any' material alteration in its constitutional relations1 with the Mother Country, but has realised that; these questions are of deeper1 concern to other portions of the Empire. It is not our purpose to place'any obstacle ia.the way of a development that is acceptable to all. We shall endeavour to do everything possible to promote the unity of the Commonwealth.

This again was in exact accord "with the Prime Minister's statement in the House on the 11th August, but it is at the same time so completely in accord with the traditional attitude of New Zealand that it can have occasioned no surprise. More interest attaches to the statement of Mr. Seullin. At the last two Imperial Conferences the attitude to the Empire of Australia, as represented \by Mr. Bruce, was substantially that of New Zealand as represented by Mr. Massey and Mr. Coates. But under a Labour Prime Minister Australia's Imperialism must necessarily *be of a chillier type, and it is possible that Mr. Scullin may disapprove of the terms altogether. It is at any rate to be noted that he seems to prefer j the term "British Commonwealth of j Nations" to the old-fashioned "British Empire" which New Zealand has seen no cause to abandon. -,But, nomenclature apart, it looks as though there would be very little difference between.Mr. Scullin and Mr. Forbes in their attitudes to "the constitutional issues which the representatives of at least two other Dominions may be expected to treat as still of permanent importance. Like Mr. Forbes, Mr. Scullin would evidently prefer to leave well alone, both inside the Conference and out of it. It was.only under cross-ex: animation at the remarkable gather-

ing of journalists, including representatives of American and European papers, at the Savoy Hotel—an ordeal from which we trust that Mr. Forbes may be saved—that Mr. Seullin was induced to speak on the subject. It was appropriate that the question, "Was Australia declaring her ri"ht to secede?" should have been put by a South African. The result is reported as follows:

Mr. Seullin: "My answer is 'No.' We do not regard it as beiqg challenged, and we are not desirous of exercising it. We believe the right exists. Equality of status means that, but we want to keep the Empire connection." Tho questioner: "The matter will crop'Up in an attempt to lay down tho right definitely." [■ Mr. Seullin: "I shall deal with it as it arises."

We should be much disappointed if, in reply to a similar question, Mr. Forbes did-not express himself much more positively and much more emphatically. It is not the right of se*j cession but the right of partnership | that New Zealand values, and she has the sense to see that a right which costs her very little—far less, indeed, than it would if she really discharged her full obligations as a partner—is of. inestimable value for so small a country. Even before the resolutions of 1926. New Zealand had, as Mr. Coates said,

ample scope for freedom and for.the attainment of,a full degree of nationhood within the Empire.

And still, as Mr. Forbes said,

our prosperity in New Zealand, and,' indeed, our safety, depend almost entirely on the prosperity and the safety of the United Kingdom, ;

To the Empire connection, guarded by the British Navy, New Zealand, as a small and weak country, owes substantially everything, but Australia, though twenty times our size, Is equally defenceless, and her obligagations to Britain . are therefore equally great, and deserve equal acknowledgment. If Mr. Scullin failed to hit his South African inquirer in the eye with a plain truth which really applies to South Africa just as much as to Australia or New Zealand, he made it perfectly clear that he will give South Africa no help in her pother about secession. Mr. Scullin believes that Australia has the right to secede, but he knows that it. will be madness to exercise it, and in these circumstances he sees no sense in discussing .it. He agrees with Mr. Forbes in preferring to "get on with the business."