VITAL QUESTION

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 57, 6 February 1925, Page 5

VITAL QUESTION

EMPIRE'S FOREIGN POCICY. NECESSITY FOR AGREEMENT. [By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.] Received February 6, 12.25 p.m. LONDON, Feb. 5. The Times is publishing a series of special articles dealing with the problem of how to make the Empire's selfgoverning nations agree upon and support a common foreign policy, whereon tho writer urges is involved the Empire's existence. He says that unless they can" agree it is only a question of time when they will separate into independent States He claim:* that the question is becoming more and more insistent, pointing out the failures of the recent attempts to settle common policy, indicating a deep seated difficulty which will become exceedingly dangerous unless solved in the near future. The writer declares that tho actual danger of v.ar is ever present, not only in Europe, but in Rtissia, tho Indian frontier, the Far East, and the Pacific Ocean and that eooner or later Germany will refuse to be subjected to military impotence. "Russia is looking eastward to India, China and Japan in the hope of organising the Orient against the West. If Japan or any other nation' begins a naval armaments race, where will it end?"

Replying to those who point out how the whole Empire rallied to the Imperial standard during the- 1914 crisis, tho writer says: "The situation within tho Frcpiro has entirely changed since 1914 and the British public has scarcely begun to understand this change. The new internatioanl staius acquired by tho Dominions after the war has made all the difference. The Lausanne affair and tho 1924 Reparations Conference prove that the Dominions will insist on their new status. They have no special confidence in Down Street's omniscience because they consider the Foreign Office's outlook is insular and that it fails to understand the overseas interests and viewpoints." The article then dwells upon the present inadequacy of inter-imperial consultation. "Cable despatches are inadequate. Constant personal contact is the very essence of successful diplomatic intercourse; without it diplomatic business would never get done. Yet in the sphere of foreign policy the personal element is almost entirely missing from tho Imperial machinery. Both Britain and the Dominions are letting things slide again. Matters are even worse in two respects than they were many years ago Lecause the GovernorsGeneral now act politically merely as the King does at home and the High Commissioners devote their main attention to commerce." —Times.