EXPANSION OF THE EMPIRE.

Evening Star, Issue 14689, 5 October 1911, Page 6

EXPANSION OF THE EMPIRE.

Mr Joseph Chamberlain says that the opening years cf the present- century saw the 'end of one chapter in the history of the British Empire. With the peace of Vereeniging the era of expansion was definitely closed. Henceforth no expansion of territory was either to bo expected or desired. When the American colonies were lost, not from lack of good intentions, but from failure to appreciate and sympathise with colonial sentiment and aspirations, it was still open to our forefathers to create a new .empire in Canada, Africa, and Australia. To-day no such opportunity existed, or could ever exist again. " The future of the Empire lies henceforward not in its power to annex new territories, but in its capacity to unite existing dominions and develop exietimr resources. This is a mere hum-drum but not a less difficult task. To it all our efforts should be directed whilst the nations that compotw the Empire are still plastic and before thegrowth of distinct national characteristics and divergent national interests has proceeded to such a point that what is now possible has for ever become impossible, and opportunities which are still within our grasp have finally passed away." After remarking that our union is of the slightest and that our development has scarcely begun, Mr Chamberlain continues : —"A common trade policy is the indispensable basis of a common Imperial policy. Again and again, openlv or tacitly, the rulers of the Empire are 'brought back by their discussdons to this fundamental fact. Tho great Dominions are willing, we alono refuse. They open the door 1o us ; in return we elam it in their faces. . . • Such a state of things cannot het. We are in a position of unstable equilibrium. The early prophecies of Tariff Reformers are being only too surely realised, and the neglect of oar opportunities, coupled with the increasing pressure of the economic policy of foreign, countries, has already driven the Government of one of our Dominions to enter into one of those close ties of reciprocal Preference with a foreign country which our refueal, and that alone, ha* prevented them fcom establishing with tha Mother Land."