THE DELEGATES AT THE COLONIAL INSTITUTE.

Evening Star, Issue 11251, 26 May 1900, Page 7

THE DELEGATES AT THE COLONIAL INSTITUTE.

MR BARTON’S THREATENING SPEECH. STORMY DISCUSSION. • [From Our Special Correspondent.] LONDON, Good Friday. ’ ’ The largest gathering of the season rilled the Whitehall JRooms on Tuesday evening, when Sir John Colomb addressed the Colonial Institute on ‘ Imperial Defence/ and the Australian delegates took part in the subsequent discussion. Sir Anthony Hoskins presided, and on the platform were Sir Powell Buxton, Mr Arnold Forster, Sir Vesey Hamilton, Mr Harold Parsons, and all the delegates except Mr Deakin and Mr Kingston. Sir John Colomb’s paper suffered from the common complaint of Colonial Institute lectures it was far too long. Furthermore, his delivery tended to somnolence. When, however, the discussion came on, wo were all effectually waked up. Mr Barton was anything bub mealy-mouthed, and before he had spoken many minutes the air was charged with electricity. It wasn’t so much the hon. gentleman’s words as his minatory, almost truculent, tone and manner which, created a sensation. The threat as to what would happen if the Commonwealth Bill did nob go through was particularly significant, and evidently meant to be so. But let me begin at the beginnings of things, and show what pernaps aroused, not only Mr Barton, but Mr Dickson also.

Sir John Colomb, who was alternately declamatory and inaudible, contrasted the position of the Empire in 1880 with that in 1900, and from our past experience deduced some main principles to guide us in the formation of a scheme of Imperial defence. Our policy to-day should be, he insisted, fundamentally the same as in 1880—maritime, not military. We should reject passive defence as a principle, and adopt offensive defence as a practice. Maritime security is paramount to all else. He feared that the popular view at Home and in the colonies was that our fleets must operate in war in British waters to ward off attock. Our fleets must, however, operate in foreign waters at the sources of power of attack, and thus paralyse attempts at its delivery. In case of war with European Powers, the real security of the

Empire beyond seas depends on British operations in European waters, not on naval means of local defence in the colonies. Sir John pointed out that the features of modem maritime wars are the necessity of long and costly preparedness in times of profound peace, the certainty of the destruction of the weaker fleet, the irrevocable nature of defeat, the quickness with which all is over. Yet, in spite of our dangers of all the Powers of the world our Empire is the only one without machinery providing supreme administrative .control over all resources under its flag, and without supreme executive authority to prepare and combine the dormant power of infinite resources for expression when required in active visible form. An Imperial Council of Defence is necessary,' with the following programme of cardinal requirements: (1) Immediate arrangements for the gradual devolution and redistribution of manufacturing and sustaining power in respect of ships, appliances, and armaments of war, so that a “world” State shall not be so wholly dependent as it is now on a single island for the production and supply of all things necessary fo rlmperial security in war. (2) The maintenance and the distribution of reserves of ships, naval t and military armaments, supplies and warlike stores in each district of the world, regulated by circumstances relating to our position in war and that of foreign Powers. The main grouping of officers and men for the exercise of maritime' power falls under two categories—(a) Those required by ships ; (b) those closely associated with the navy for the purposes of landing, seizing, and holding its bases, and making lodgments in hostile territory preliminary to tho disembarkation of an army if required. He urged that tho colonial naval reserve might well be trained to perform tho work of an auxiliary naval force on land sen-ice. Its characteristics should be military, with some sea experience superadded to give it elasticity and adaptability. 'The protection of commerce depends on the completeness and efficiency of arrangement for collecting and disseminating intelligence. Such a system must be woricod through commercial centres and the mercantile marine. The present operations in Africa teach us that, and, granted the perfect safety of the sea, the time in which a given military force can be thrown on any shore from over sea is not so much a question of sea distance as of the number and variety of the ports of collection, embarkation, and tho wharfage and shipping arrangements of such ports. We must

therefore not base our arrangements for ( British defence on the assumption that ' foreign Powers Can” make formidable and sudden military descent on our coasts at home or abroad. Prom the war.iWe learn the necessity for the consolidation of Out military means for general defence ready to apply whenever .and wherever necessary/ We must develop power of rapid and certain military combination for defence of the Em- | pire as a whole out of a series of separate I systems mainly adapted to fragmentary pas- 1 sive defence. We must rely not only on the [ sentiment, but the practice of unity to fur- | nish, by a voluntary system, the men for the service of the Empire. India and the , i C 'o/ ri ' eS °® er m P*'e suitable areas for training 1 . officers.and men than Aldershot or Salisbury i Plain, particularly as regards that branch of . the army for scouting-and feeling for an enemy. This fact should have its influence , | on. the methods and fields of selection for | I training. Sir John, in conclusion, sketched | out ' the following general outlines of the '■ reorganisation of the army for the Empire, , if British military power is to be promptly available for the general defence of the Empire in war. All departmental rules differentiating between rank, status, and place | of colonial forces and their units from those j ' of the United Kingdom respectively must he swept away:—(l) The regular army and its ’ reserves to be the nucleus of the Imperial ' army. (2) The Imperial army for great de- i fensive ware to. consist of the army and its ! reserves, augmented by such portion of Home i and colonial territorial forces as volunteer ' i snd prepare in peace to hold themselves available for general service in war. (3) j The acceptance of a binding obligation beI tween the Governments of all parts of the ' Empire to secure similarity in armament, i warlike stores, and all things really essential 1 ' to such uniformity as is necessary to secure ; that when the Imperial reserves furnished by ( ! territorial forces, by different parts of the I ; Empire, are brought together in the field, 1 j complication shall be avoided. i j Sir John’s idea seemed one that would j commend itself to all Imperialists—the en- | ■ deavor to form in time of peace a homo- ' geneous British Army that would be ready j j to act promptly on the outbreak of war, j and that would not require rearming and reorganising when face to face with the foe. | Not even the most independent colonial ! could, one would have thought, have objected j to the suggestion that the wholp Empire

should combine to fcvmulate a practical scheme of Imperial defence. But at the term “ binding obligation ” the delegates present (Mr Barton and Mr Dickson) shied violently. Mr Barton declared with vigor that the day had not yet come when tho cohesion of the Empire was to be sought by binding obligations. The finest thinv about the assistance of the colonies in the war was its voluntary spontaniety. It was the pure npspring of the Briton in his pride of race, not the result of any obligation on paper. If the obligation had been on paper the assistance would not have been so important, nor tho contingents so numerous. The colonies would lend themselves readily to a common action if the suggestions came from themselves. They were loyal, but still touchy, and if the English Government were to interfere with any arrangements they had made, such as in the matter of Federation, they would show how touchy they were. If there were to be cohesion, it must arise from the free play of that feeling exhibited during tho war, which would find much fuller, and freer expression on the recurrence of danger. Eloquent as Mr Barton’s speech was, his threatening reference to Federation and his apparent objection to the bare idea of England s making even suggestions to Australia created anything but a favorable impression on tho audience.

The Hon. J. R. Dickson, who stammered badly at opening, but soon warmed to bis work, was more cautious, although he Buggested that they were not prepared to accept all that Sir John had told them with reference to the Southern Hemisphere. He pointed out that Australian Federation would enable the Australian forces to be mobilised and massed as one homogeneous consolidated defence force, and predicted that the Australians, once they had taken part in campaigns, would henceforth always desire to share with the veterans of the British Empire tho honors and traditions of the wars of the J in^P*^ e - This had a good patriotic ring; but Mr Dickson concurred with Mr Barton tnftt it wos premature to press a scheme of Imperial defence on Australia. Australia was not yet a recruiting ground, for the Imperial Army. Supplies of men could rot be raised without a serious disarrangement of tho industrial avocations in which the Australians were engaged. Sir Johffis paper might form the basis for future action,-when Australia was more populous and a great Federation. .

( In view of the imminence of a war with i some Great Power, these utterances were distinctly disappointing, and Mr Arnold Forster said so in plain terms. Ho has a knack of rubbing people the • wrong way,: but I have never heard him so forcible and so moderate, as he was on .Tuesday. Sis patriotic end practical speech was the one of the evening* and evoked a long-continued bursty Of' applause. The ftssistartce of the I colonies, he thought, was sometimes put tpo I much as a matter of favor, and not as a 1 matter of—he would not say obligation, but j interest. He could not understand why the I colonies’ response to our call for assistance should be less if they Were under an obligation to help us?; We were all the same nation, and had the same responsibility. If Australia were attacked by a Cbntinenta. j Power wo ip England ..should be under on absolute obligation to spend-our last man j and our last shilling in her defence. We were dealing. with realities, and required I something more than sentiment. The one lesson to be learnt from the past was that the man who had organised ahd anticipated was the man to win. He dissociated himself from the idea that our defence should be left to what Mr Barton J had called the undirected impulses of the i people. The science of war, and of/prepara- : tion for it, must be studied and learned. ' ThO difference between the want of prepar*j tion and scientific organisation that be- | tween the amateur and the professional. He j realised the enormous value of the fortuitous i assemblage in Africa of the gallant men from the colonies. In time of war, however, ten men who could be relied on to be at a certain date and place when required were worth 100 who had to be equipped and summoned, and whose co-operation was unceri tain. We were face to face with the armed ; nations of Europe, and needed the brains | of the statesmen of the Mother Country and the colonies to devise some practical scheme 1 of defence, without which we should be runI ning a risk to the whole Anglo-Saxon stock j that no one could contemplate without: a shudder.

The rest of the discussion was desultory. Some gallant Admirals and M.P.s hummed and hawed. Mr Harold Parsons hurriedly repeated hie scheme of a committee of the Privy Council controlling co-ordinate militias, referred to the Huttonisation- of the British forces, and told how, as a cheeky undergraduate, ho suggested the formation

mirri ftr al , for Defen « to Ads' 1 : 11 te;i ; p d th ? 4dmin.l snubbed him. Colonel Gunter, rubicund and robust tXS tlf necMßi ,* of a in Ait Shot h e n mam a ilCtUre of Small “™s. shot, and shell, and even bhj guns. If withm?t S n C nv mak i U t ? eSe gl,ns in Ki >nberlcy without any special plant, Australians ought t have no difficulty in doing so either. To meet emergencies, a large reserve of ammuuiWiX Th ST f hould bo stored “I Austiaha. The difficulty of the Colonial Naval Reserve was that they wanted officers and while they would only be bluejackets! the long period of sea training by the Admiralty did nob suit them, but they were from f Val , ,gunner . rs ‘ Wo ‘roused flariti.d!, mn ° lnto * hich of platitudes were lulling us by Mr Barton’s explanation that he was in sympathy with a better organised system of the defence of the Empire, and his delivery of some Parthian thrusts at Mr Arnold Forster bv dedaring that there , were Governments in r.w 1 * and thev would take care that the patriotic impulses of the Australian citizens were not undirected, and that he had some hope for the amateur when he Saw the way in which amateurs in South Africa confronted the regulor troons The chairman (Admiral Sir Anthony Hoskins) wound up what he described a* a fining that as the result of his experience he had found that the Australians resented bavin* “ thin.?'* crammed down their throats” ‘or bS treated in high-handed fashion. " A VENOMOUS ARTICLE. The delegates, who are being treated with such deference, will receive a rude shock from on article in Mr Harold Gorst’s new weekly, the Review of the Week' headed ‘Federation or Separation.’ The writer deals out his diatribes with the ut most impartiality and disregard of per! sons. Mr Chamberlain is an opportunist, the nation somnolent, and the Colonial Office _ repugnant to make up what it calls its mind. The Bill is still totally unfit for presentation to Parliament, and there Fmnffie Cnt l ° f - a qUarre ] bet '«*n the ittnplre and the colonies it M Tim Australian question is scarcely J^/impor tant and far-reaching than any that has Vet msen m South Africa. Nine-tenths of the Australians would be glad to have the BUI impartially discussed and radically modified where necessary The people of Australia only voted the ‘ principles of Federation, not the details of the Bill. The details of

the Bill were a clumsy compromise, agreed upon with the greatest difficulty amongst a handful of obscure politicians, every one of whom . Ims since been turned out of office, and Was forced through the various Legislatures by a stress of party machinery, which, in every instance, brought about Its own wreck. To pretend that the 1 Commonwealth of Australia Bill is a wise measure, 1 or one that does credit to the statesmanship of the colonies, is sheer hypocrisy. The really great men who governed Australia thirty years ago would have been utterly ashamed of such a piece of cobbler’s work. ’ The rulers of the Commonwealth are to he “ the delegates of the mob.” “ The Commonwealth will begin by having the Worst Legislature of any constitutionally-governed country in the world.” The financial clauses are “such a jumble of inconsistencies that they are bound to be swept away directly the Government of the Commonwealth try to grapple with the unanswerable conundrums they propose.” The provision for the Governor-General is stingy, the necessary provisions relating to the status or payment of Governors were left out or struck out either through carelessness or because the members of the Convention could _ not agree. The omission must be remedied. “ Let the Secretary of State put his foot down firmly, and make himself the champion of the people of Australia, whether the delegates (who are in no sense .representatives) agreed with him or not.” "The framers of the Commonwealth Bill have had tire impudence to invade the Queen’s prerogative,” Says the vitriolic journalist, who, after quoting clause 74, concludes with the following remarkable passage:—“ It. is not necessary to be a lawyer to see the purpose and effect of these insidious enactments. Under the specious appearance of upholding the right of appeal of British subjects in Australia to the Privy Council, they do away with it altogether. The cunning with which the thing is done is really worthy of Kruger and Levds. If this law were sanctioned by the Imperial Parliament, the High Court of Australia would be exactly on a par with the High Court of the Transvaal. It could be overawed at any time by the Government of the Commonwealth, just as the High Court at Pretoria was overawed by the’Yolksraad. And there would be no appeal to the Empire—no appeal to the Queen-in-Council. Is that what Australian Federation means? God forbid! Yet that is what is m the Bill which is now in the hands of Mr Chamberlain for presentation to Parliament. We know him to he an opportunist, hut we cannot believe him to be so short-sighted as to consent to a law which must inevitqhly lead within ten years to troubles between Great Britain and Australia. The clauses of the Commonwealth Bill purporting to limit the Queen's prerogative in Judicial matters- must be struck out, sans phrase, in the interests, not of any parish or colony, but of the world-wide British Empire.” MISS SHAW COACHED BY A CABINET MINISTER. Despite the assurances of the delegates that nothing could be more amicable than the spirit in which they are being met by the Colonial Office, there is every sign of a storin brewing over the Privy Council clauses of the Commonwealth Bill. The two-column article of ‘ The Times which I referred to last week ns “ inspired ” la full of significance. “The hand was the hand of Flora Shaw, but the voice was the voice of a Cabinet Minister.” So those in the know say. Miss Shaw, ‘ The Times,’ and the Colonial Office did not figure well in the Jameson raid. Let us hope that their apparent juxtaposition in this affair does not presage ill for United Australia. As a matter of fact, the article in ‘ The Times ’ was practically a paraphrase of the first confidential memorandum presented by Mr Chamberlain and the Crown Law Officers to the delegates. Despltethe faet that their copy will not see the light for five weeks after it is written, colonial correspondents keep strict secrecy on the confidential matters disclosed to them. It is only ‘ The Times ’ and those behind it who seem privileged to let the confidential cat out of the Downing street bag. Mr Massingham, the London correspondent of the ‘Manchester Guardian,’ who seems to have constituted himself the mouthpiece of the delegates, says openly: “ Cabinet Ministers coach ‘ The Times ’ in the most intransigeant position which any member of the present Government has taken up,” and prophesies that “ if this tone and attitude are maintained the Government are preparing the way for a serious situation,” and that “ if this kind of manoeuvring goes on, and if as a result the Government pull the Bill to pieces, the Australian delegates will refuse to have anything to do with it. . .- . They will strongly resent the attempt to ‘rig’ the Press against them or to use loyalist feeling in Australia to check the Federation movement.” New Zealand's intervention seems likely to have no effect, and she will probably be left to make the best terms she can with the Commonwealth hereafter. Of her position Mr Massingham says: “New Zealand is in a difficult, perhaps a hard, plight. She is neither inside the Australian system nor quite outside it. In the past she lias certainly show no abounding desirr to join the now federated States. Does she now wish for union? The Australian delegates say shrewdly that what she wants is to have an option to come in or stay out, and to pay nothing for it. She would, perhaps, reply that she has a right to come in on the basis of a. ‘ most-favored ’ State, and that as she thinks she is bound to lose in either alternative, Australia might in grace concede this position. Practically this is a plea rather than a demand.”