CONTRARY VIEWS

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 150, 28 June 1938, Page 12

CONTRARY VIEWS

CANADA AND EMPIRE

PARTY ATTITUDES

SOUND MIND OF THE PEOPLE

(From "The Post's" Representative.)

VANCOUVER, June 8.

Strange words fell from the lips of the Prime Minister of Canada in his long-promised pronouncement on this Dominion's attitude towards the Motherland and the rest of the Empire. In effect, he said that Canada made no commitments to the Empire or to any country, for any cause, to make war or to abstain from war. It would be for Parliament to say when the time came. Canada offered no advice to Great Britain on foreign affairs and did not wish to be consulted thereon. Canada was not bound by any decision of the United Kingdom. "Incidentally," Mr. Mackenzie King added, "the time has come to cease speaking of the Dominions as if they were some peculiar, half-fledged type lof community, and all alike in their | interests and views. Such a usage leads to confusion, at best, and to alibis and misrepresentation,_ at worst. South Africa is South Africa, New ; Z&alctnd is New Zealand, Australia Australia, and Canada is Canada, and it will help to good understanding if that elementary fact is borne in mind." "I do not consider that we are called upon to pass judgment or take sides in United Kingdom discussions. Inevitably the rise of such contentious issues, such party cleavages, leads to efforts to secure or claim the support of Canada, or Australia, or South Africa, or New Zealand for one or other view. Statements appear in the British Press that the Dominions demand this or that, that Australia supports the Government, or that New Zealand supports the Opposition. So far as the Canadian Government is concerned, it does not consider that it is in the interests either of Canada or the Commonwealth to tender advice as to what policy the United Kingdom should adopt, week by week, or become involved in British political disputes. We have expressed no opinion on that policy, and no one in London is authorised or warranted in interpreting us as doing so."

OBLIGATIONS OF PARTNERSHIP.

The Conservative Leader was not slow to remind his successor in the Treasury benches of the obligations Mr. Mackenzie King assumed, on behalf of Canada, in the 1926 agreement, which fixed the status of Canada in relation to the Motherland and the Empire: equality, but all partners of the Commonwealth, united by common allegiance to the Crown. "That association comprehends unity of action and a common purpose," he declared. He referred to a statement by the Minister of Defence that the British Navy would protect Canada's trade in the Atlantic. "Who is maintaining that Navy? Who is being taxed to death that it may exist?" he asked.

"If Great Britain were at war, how could Canada remain neutral and still claim free association in the Commonwealth of British Nations?" Mr. Bennett asked. "How many realise that, in the Great War, mines were laid a few miles off the coast of Nova Scotia and ships were sunk? Are we living in a different Canada to the one in which there was such unanimity of action at the outbreak of the Great War to maintain our integrity and defend our shores? Parliament never makes a foreign policy. That is for the advisers of his Majesty. Parliament merely says 'yea' or 'nay.' Here we have two different policies, the one diametrically opposite to the other. If Mr. Mackenzie King is in power when Great Britain is drawn into war Canada will be neutral. If Mr. Bennett or his party is in power Canada will rally to the side of the Motherland in the first hour of her trial. Anyone who knows the real heart and aim and aspiration of Canada will know that, when that hour arrives, though everyone hopes and prays it will be long delayed, the scenes of August, 1914, will be repeated, possibly with greater fervour in view of the behaviour of certain Powers during the past decade.