“Empire A Lap Behind Events In Europe"

Greymouth Evening Star, 8 June 1948, Page 6

“Empire A Lap Behind Events In Europe"

LONDON, June 7. Suggestions have been made that Dr Hugh Dalton, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, may be placed in charge of arrangements for a meeting of the Commonwealth Prime Ministers. One forecast is that two conferences may be held—a brief discussion by the Prime Ministers on the immediate issue of the Western Union, followed by another and more elaborately-prepared meeting to discuss constitutional problems raised by post-war developments in the Commonwealtfy particularly in India and Pakistan.

“Is there to be a proper Dominions’ conference in 1948, or a kind of Imperial relay race?” asks the Daily Mail. ‘'lf the Dominion Prime Ministers arrive at different times and what they discuss is not. agreed to later, the conversations might as well have been held over _ the long- | distance telephone. The critical days of 1948 call for a clear-cut conference. Since 1945 there have been farreaching changes in India, Burma, ’Ceylon, Egypt and Palestine. Now under the Nationalists, South Africa’s course is bound to be altered, if only slightly at first. These matters alone are worthy of discussion at a fullscale Imperial conference.” The New Statesman and Nation, j in a leading article, says: “The pro- | ject of a conference is a belated victory for the informed section of public opinion. After several opportune occasions for a conference since the, war had come and gone, it began to look as if such an institution was defunct. It was not until the project of a Western Union brought certain latent Commonwealth problems to a head that opinion in Britain and some of the Dominions became vocal, and Governments felt themselves obliged to respond. “Official Inertia” “Powerful antagonists to .such a conference,” says the New Statesmen, “were officials who dislike big Ministerial gatherings. Official inertia has been a valuable ally of political objections in some of the Dominions. Both Canada and South Africa have been cautious, Dr Evatt has seemed readier to have the Commonwealth conform to Australian policy than Australia conform to Commonwealth policy, ’and accordingly has been well content to rest upon such devices as the Australian and New Zealand agreement and the Canberra conference on Pacific issues, on which Australia could exercise a natural regional paramountcy. New Zealand has not exerted much influence one way or the other. India and Pakistan have been preoccupied with their own difficulties. • “Commonwealth statesmanship or the first order will be required to overcome such inhibitions,” says the

New Statesman, “and on the side of statesmanship will be the urgency of the issues that have to be settled. Commonwealth policy, if it is to stay In the same race with European policy, has to run fast to keep up. It is already a lap-behind. “Basically, the problem is one rather for the Dominions than for Britain. We in these islands cannot escape belonging to Europe. We-have neither the predominant, strength nor the geographical isolation.to remain outside the Western European concert. . . . For us there is really no .choice. The choice, if it exists, is one rather for the Dominions to tmake.

“Are’ They- Prepared?” “Are they prepared to come with us into the circle of Western Powers, recognising that fundamental interest as well as Imperial ties commit them anyway to the consequences of what transpires in Europe in the future, just as it did in 1914 and 1939? Or will they take a chance on being able to decide in time and effectively when a still more critical moment comes later —recognising that such a policy weakens the Commonwealth in the same meaure as it enlarges their own apparent independence? Statesmanship may suggest one answer: national politics may dictate another. “It is long odds that the Commonwealth conference in its public pronouncements will seek some formula which will avoid presenting this issue in its naked simplicity. But the Ministers and their advisers cannot evade decisions on many points where the pressure of events will decide for them if they do not decide for themselves. “The problem of Commonwealth defence is rapidly approaching such a crisis. Important decisions have to be taken now, and they must depend to some extent on the contribution the Dominions are ready to make to general security. Similarly, decisions about trade and finance cannot be indefinitely postponed or camouflaged, nor can those on the constitutional problems which involve the whole trend of the Commonwealth towards changing into an association of independent States owing no common allegiance.”