OPTIONAL CLAUSE MAY DISMEMBER EMPIRE.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 24 September 1929, Page 8

OPTIONAL CLAUSE MAY DISMEMBER EMPIRE.

IRISH AND INDIANS GIVEN OPPORTUNITY

PEACE WITHOUT, DISSENSION WITHIN,

■ Received Monday, 7.1 d |>.m, LONDON, Sept. ±2. The signing of the optional clause of Geneva’s “leap in the dark” may have most disintegrating effects on the British Empire says Professor J. H. Morgan, in an article in the Sunday Referee.

“It will almost certainly In- used,’’ lie says, “by elements in two o\erse;is Dominions, and in India, which make no secret of (heir political oldestive as secession from the Empire. The terms of South Afiica’s subscription are obscure but they suggest a glancing blow at the Envy Council. The .Irish Free State has subscribed in unreserved terms, of which it is no exa.ggeraturn to say They are calculated to deal a lethal blow at the constitutional structure of the Empire. It :s true Britain signed with a. reservation excluding inlet-imperial disputes from the jurisdiction of the Hague Court but the fatal Haw iu this reservation is that the Hague Court itself will be the sole judge whether the dispute is inter-im-perial. “By adhering to the optional-clause, wo have placed into the hands ot secessionists. The Irish Free State, having signed without reservation, may

summon Britain before the Court to decide its obligations under tin; AngloIrish agreement. Worse sliil, if India gets Dominion status, she may follow lli(- Irish precedent of signing without reservation and summon be I. ore the Court those Dominions which exclude Oriental migrants. “As was pointed out by New Zealand in 1925, our adhesion to the Court’s compulsory jurisdiction is unnecessary and undesirable but if anything is to be gained thereby, we should have taken care to secure that the Empire acted unitedly and agreed to identical reservations.

“I fear that in seeking peace outside the Empire, we have only succeeded in sowing the seeds of dissension within it.’’