AUSTRALIAN ISSUES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXII, Issue LXXII, 15 January 1917, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN ISSUES.

SIR W. McMILLAN'S VIEWS

Sir William McMillan, "a former New South Wales Colonial Treasurer, and a prominent authority in the Commonwealth on constitutional matters, arrived at Auckland the other day by the Niagara, from a six. months' business visit to the Old Country. When interviewed by an Auckland Star" reporter as to the political and military position at Home, {Sir William remarked that when he left England the political situation was undergoing such changes that he could say no more on the subject than was already known here? Everywhere he went, however, he was impressed witih the spirit of grim determination in Great Britain to see the war through to victory at any cost, and the immensity of the military effort, together with the supreme sacrifices being made to assist in the nation's organised resolve, were an object lesson to the visitor from the sheltered and prosperous Antipodes. PRINCIPLE OF IMPERIAL SERVICE. This brought the traveller to the situation in Australia, and especially.to the probable effect of the referendum vote on the compulsion issue. "Having been .away from Australia during the critical period I am not able to discuss details, nor have I seen the Bill iipon which the referendum on the" question of compulsion was based," said Si>r William McMillan, "but it is probable that it may have only applied to the period of the war. But, if not, ana if" it were permanently embodied in the constitution the great value of the vote cast in the affirmative would be, to my mind, the acceptance of the principle that every man in the Commonwealth of Australia would be compelled under similar circumstances to those of the present war to serve in any part of the Empire. We want certain voluntary ties to consolidate the Empire in the future, and the voluntary recognition of the fact that the mere enlistment of men was not for service confined to our own shores, but for the Empire, would have had a great annealing influence in the future. These, are the sort of ties "that we require, together with the patriotism and sentiment arising out of the present war, to bind the different parts of the Empire together as one people, instead of trusting entirely to trade relations, as some people desire to do." THE TRADE BOND ASPECT. "We are so intimately affected by our geographical surroundings," went on our visitor, "that each part of th.c Empire will more or less be influenced by its trade relations with the countries adjacent to it. All countries claiming the position of empires are, with the exception of a few unimportant colonies, possessed of continuous territory, which as time^goes on will become more consolidated by modern appliances of locomotion. But oun- Empire, divided into five or six oversea possessions, is in a different position altogether, and I have always thought that any attempt to drag the trade away from its natural channel", must ultimately be prejudicial to the consolidation of the whole. It. is only matters of defence, appeals to the Privy Council, and especially at this time the joining of all our forces, naval and military, which are now the greatest united consideration. These are, to my mind, the ties which will count m the consolidation of the British Empire I am sorry, therefore, that the'referendnm failed to enunciate Australia's determination to recognise the true principle of Imperial unity, because "there always will^e, no matter how the voluntary system is carried out, a residuum or men who never will enlist except under compulsion. And such m.en, under the voluntary system, can evade their duty and obligations as citizens of the Empire indefinitely."