The Hawera Star. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1925. MANY NATIONS IN ONE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 7 February 1925, Page 4

The Hawera Star.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1925. MANY NATIONS IN ONE.

Delivered every evening by 5 o’clock in Hnwera, Manain, Norihanbv, Okinawa, IMhani, Mangat.oki, Kapongj, Alton, ' Turley ville, Patea, Waverley, Mokoin, liakniiiarn, Ohangai. Merernere, Fraser bead, and Ararata.

The line taken, by a. writer to The Times (London), in dealing with the question of Empire unity in the matter of foreign policy, is substantially that which we followed in discussing the same position ■ a week or so ago. The British writer stresses the importance of close personal contact in all manner of diplomacy, and complainsi that this personal touch is the very thing which Britain and the Dominions are not developing, * since Governorsi-General act politically, merely as the King does at Home, While High Commissioners devote their main attention to commerce. The remedy proposed is that GovemorsGeneral and High Commissioners should be.chosen for their diplomatic qualifications, and their functions remodelled, and that there should be British diplomatic representative in every Dominion capital. We have already pointed out that the position of a Dominion, High, Commissioner calls for such, an array of . qualifications, of so divergent a nature, that it is not humanly possible for one man to fill the bill perfectly in every respect; and we rather fancy that a High, Commissioner chosen primarily to act as a diplomatic representative

-night be found wanting in. other di- 1 l ections. From the point of view of | the Dominions the difficulty is not so easy of solution as some of the English doctrinaires ..might have us believe. o'iice more the bogey of separation has been, raised—unless we can agree on a common foreign policy it is only a question of time when the Dominions will resolve- into independent States, .says the correspondent of, The Times. There is a couplet from . Shelley that may appropriately be quoted in reply: “True -love in this differs from gold or olay, That to 'divide is not to take away.” In li.is recently published book on British Colonial Policy in the TwenCentury, Professor H. E. Egerton, who formerly • held a chair of Colonial History at Oxford, speaks of independence as in operation now. “The Dominion .status as it is evolving itself,” he says, “may be described as one op absolute independence, tempered by loyalty to a common. Crown and bv the determination, to work in co-operation with Great Britain in the fulfilment of the Imperial trust.” If the British Empire had a republican constitution! it could! hardly he expected to hold together much longer; while the link of the Crown, remains, it explains the seeming paradox of independence without separation. However, that does not get away from the difficulty of consultation, or from the need for closer co-operation between members of the Imperial family. The nroposal that the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs should treat tlie High Commissioner .as a personal intermediary with Dominion Cabinet rank is by no. means new. Mr. Massey .suggested to his colleagues at the meeting of the. Imperial War Cabinet in li>lß that the solution of the problem lay in. the appointment of a resident Minister in London, and that is all that this newest scheme amounts to. At the 1917 Imperial Conference, General Smuts allowed his enthusiasm to run away with him somewhat. “What you want,” he said, “is to call together the most important statesmen of the Empire from time to time —say,'once a year, or as often, as may be found necessary—to discuss matters which concern all parts of the Empire in common, and in order that causes of friction, and misunderstanding may be removed. A common policy should be laid down to determine the true orientation of our Imperial policy. Take foreign policy, for instance . ; . . I think it is highly desirable that at least once a year the most important leaders of the'Empire should be called together to discuss these matters.” Until the means of oversea travel are speeded up very considerably, such annual conferences are manifestly ■ impossible, and the presence, in London of ' intermediary Dominion. Ministers, ■ who shall keep in the closest cable communication with their home Governments, suggests a means of strengthening that eoYrsultive machinery the main driving wheel of which Should still be the Imperial Conference —preferably meeting once in a Dominion capital for every once in. London. The first of the series of special articles in The Times contains little that is new; but it will serve a useful purpose if it hut rouses the statesmen of the Empire to the urgent need for action in some such direction as that indicated.