RUSSIA OR THE EMPIRE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 13 December 1924, Page 15

RUSSIA OR THE EMPIRE.

LABOUR’S UNNATURAL SELECTION.

ORIENTAL IMMIGRATION

DANGEROUS POWER BEHIND THE THRONE.

LONDON.. Oct. 24

By the time this reaches New Zealand the British elections will be over and the new Parliament will be at Westminister. It is inteiesting to observe, lioAvever, that the election is being fought largely on an Imperial basis. Beyond a- perfunctory claim that the Labour Government has “strengthened the ties of sentiment Avith the Government trading in bulk with the Dominions, the Labour manifesto has no AA'ord to sav upon the subject of Empire.' “The appeal of the General Council of the Trades Union Congress,” .The Times .points out, “has no Avord to sav about it at all. Both documents range over a wide field; both contain long passages on the imperative necessity of the Treaties Avitli Bolshevik Russia and the urgency of a resumption of trade Avith her in the interests of our unemployed; both press for the conclusion of the loan to her guaranteed by the British taxpayer. The manifesto asks the electors Avhether they ‘will allow this Avork for. peace and’ 1 prosperity to he stopped’; the appeal states that the Council ‘excludes no country from the participation in the necessary trade revival, and least of all the countries Avhich can supply what we need and take what we make.’ But why do GoA T ernment and Council fix their gaze so ardently upon trade with Bolshevik Russia and coyly avert, it from the more promising markets offered ns .by our oAvn felloAV-suhjects of the Dominions and the Empire? They are austere and inflexible Freetraders — in eA'erytliing except labour. Why this enormous preference, ‘camouflaged’ as a guarantee, to the Bolsheviks Avlien they reject the trifling preference on a few insignificant commodities, winch is all that the Dominions request? What is the meaping of this ‘unnatural selection’ ? Why choose out one single Power for the grant of exorbitant immunities, and of a money bribe in order to induce her to be good enough to,trade with us on terms of her dictation, unheard of in the Avhole history of commerce? It

cannot l:e from any affinity Avhich the British negotiators may. feel- with Bcl'herik tenets, for Mr. Ramsay MacDonald has lately proclaimed his abhorrence of those tenets as loudly as Zinovieff 4ms proclaimed liis contempt for Mr. MacDonald. What can he the reason for this egregious piece of favouritism? DOMINIONS DEEPLY HURT. “The Labour Government attaches great importance to sentiment. It is always making ‘gestures’ to “Europe’ and bidding us admire the roseate atmosphere diffused by the process. But it shows little sentrveness to Imperial feeling, and its ‘gestures’ to the Dominions are generally cold, when, they are, not repellent. Mr. Ciyiies, in an expaft-

sive hour after lunch at "Wembley, did, indeed, state that 'Labour was being converted, ‘or perhaps diverted,’ f t r.om its former groove to a wider avenue; he declared that we ‘should do everything possible to cultivate closer trade relations with our Dominions,’ and, he deprecated the idea that this question should be ‘made into a cjass or party problem.’ Mr. Thonias protested against the assumption'.that any party , of class has a monopoly of patriotism towards the Empire." The doctrine of both Ministers is most sound, and we believe well grounded. But has the .Labour Government' as a whole practised it? The Dominions do not tipple so. They have been deeply hurt by that Government’s repudiation of those resolutions of an Imperial Conference which a leading Dopiinion statesman well described as ‘the considered deliberations' of the Empire Council; ’ They had taken their disappointment admirably, but they have not hidden it, and they have comforted themselves by the belief that it does not reflect the judgment or the wishes of tl)e British people at Home. But preference is not the only subject on which Mr. MacDonald and his colleagues have seemed, to contemn Empire on subjects of Imperial moment. They can pledge £3O,(XX),O{JO to obtain a visionary trade with the Bolshevik Republics, but economy forbids them to find the million for carrying on the works at Singapore which the Dominions of Australia and' New Zealand deemed essential to their, security. They plume themselves on Lord f’armoor s Geneva Protocol almost as proudly as upon Mr. Ponsonby’s—and Mr .Purcell’s —treaty. They did not trouble themselves over the view of the Dominions on this achievement, and as to its bearing upon matters so’vital to them as Oriental immigration. Ministers tremble at the disappointment of the Bolsheviks when Parliament withholds the millions they have recklessly piomised. Have they not uneasiness at the consequences of flouting the considered opinion and the deepest feelings of the Dominions on subjects which these gieat communities of our blood deem all-important to themselves? “There is among us an extremist faction at the orders of the Red Third International. They are strongly organised, they are cunningly led, they are sufficiently endowed, and the Campbell case and the botched-up Ponsonby-Pur-cel I Treaty prove that they have ‘power behind the throne.’ They have ordered their comrades to vote for Mr. MacDonald, for they want‘nuclei’ inthe Hor.se, and. if it may be in the Government, to in Pert and paralyse the Empire at the heart. In that free union of free peoples, true to themselves, they recognise Bolshevism’s irreconcilable Vnd invincible .foe.” GOOD MONEY AFTER BAD. The Daily Telegraph also has a holding article on the same lines. “Socialism has brought about complete economic dissolution in Russia,” says the Teleg:;rih. and assuredly it is not in any trade with the country that we are to expect a solution of om- unemployment problem. The best hope of finding work for the hundreds of thousands of men and women who are now in enforced idleness lies in the development and settlement of our own Empire having already lent Russia £60(1.000,00'') when she was sane, it won],-] he throwing good monev after bad to make a further loan of thirty 01 foitv millions when she is mad. Our oversea kinsmen have the first claiiu on our good will and on all the capital we can afford to send them, and wo can lend it with assurance that it will he put to good use and will vield us full interest, hntli in cash promotion of the welfare of our world-wide Commonwealth.