AMAZING CHANGES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 44, 21 January 1936, Page 9

AMAZING CHANGES

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL. STATUS OF DOMINIONS. The Empire has passed through an amazing series of chances and changes in the 25 years of King George’s reign, and two of. the changes are outstanding. The main topic of Imperial discussion when His Majesty ascended the Throne was the fiscal question. The principle of Imperial Preference

had then been applied for many years by all the Dominions; but England stood faithful to her free trade system and refused the grant of reciprocal preferences. The subject remained intensely controversial during 22 years of the reign; but in 1932 -England decided to adopt a system of moderate protection, and in the same year established reciprocal preferences for the various parts of the Empire. A political transformation lias also taken place no less remarkable. In the earlier years of the reign the Dominions, though absolutely self-governing within their own boundaries, were content to leave international questions, apart from certain matters of trade,

to the central control of the British Government. Immediately after the War they took rank ill the comity of nations as independent States and individual members of the League of Nations. At a later Imperial Conference it was resolved that Britain and the Dominions were autonomous, communities, “equal in status and in no way subordinate to one another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs.” To this definition legislative effect was given, in 1931, by the Statute of Westminster. NEAV DOMINIONS. It is a curious fact that both King Edward’s and King George’s accession to the Throne coincided with the creation of a new Dominion. The Australian Stages had just united in a Commonwealth when King Edward succeeded, and King George, then Duke of York, opened the first Australian Parliament in the first year of the reign. Only nine years later the South

African Colonics formed themselves into a Union, and the Act establishing it passed through Parliament by the end of 1909. King George was to have opened the fiiist' Union Parliament as Prince of Wales. His accession made this impossible, and the Duke of Connaught went out to South Africa to perform the ceremony in his stead. Ireland (minus the six counties of Northern Ireland) became a Dominion under the name of the Irish Free State in 1923; but the Irish question still remains an enigma and still defies solution. In South Africa, Imperial policy has reconciled a large majority of the Dutch people to partnership in the Empire. Rhodesia, the great territory which bears tlie name of Cecil Rhodes, was still administered at the King’s accession by the Chartered Company, which Rhode's founded. Its administration remained unchanged till after the War, when a committee, under the late Lord Buxton’s chainnansliij), recommended that Southern Rhodesia should receive self-government. It became a selfgoverning colony in 1923. Northern Rhodesia, a more largely native territory, which had been separately administered for many years, became at the same time a Crown Colony, under the control of the Secretary of State for the Colonies.

CEYLON AND NEWFOUNDLAND. Tlie Colony of Ceylon has also since the War received a large measure of self-government. The Ceylon Constitution is of an unusual type, and must still be regarded as ex2)erimental. Newfoundland has been verv hard hit by the distress of her chief staple, the fishing industry, and had to face the resulting trouble with a budget position completely undermined by several years of improvident finance. In 1932 she was in imminent danger of default, and appealed to the British Government. Self-government has been .siisi>ended, and the island is for the time being under the control of Commissioners appointed by tlie British Government. There is no reason to doubt that in dive course Newfoundland’s finances will be re-established and her Constitution restoied. Tlie Dominions had little warning of the imminence of the War, and still less knowledge of the causes which precipitated it. But they stood without hesitation by the Mother Country, and maintained their cohesion through four years of strain and terrible sacrifice. All the. Dominions lwro their share of the vast cost of the War, and contributed of their resources to the utmost possible. , It was only natural that the central direction of a world-wide effort which tola on every phase of life throughout the Empire should not be left throughout the War in the sole hands of the British Government. It became desirable to constitute a central directorate containing Dominion as well as British Ministers, and accordingly, in 1917, the War Cabinet came into being. The Cabinet was in fact nothing more than a permanent session of the Imperial Conference. It was established; in our usual manner, to meet an emergency, and worked admirably. The unity achieved by the Empire j in the "War was preserved throughout I the peace negotiations. There went to

Paris for the conference which ultimately produced the Peace Treaties a full British Empire delegation, the leading members of which signed those instruments individually on behalf of each Dominion. From the standpoint of Imperial history, the most interesting features of the peace settlement, apart from the manner in which the Empire was represented, are two —the creation of the League of Nations, and the grant under the League of mandates for the government of colonial territories surrendered by Germany. LEAGUE AND COVENANT.

It is probable that the germ of the League of Nations is to be found in the success of the London Conference convened in 1912 by Sir Edward Grey to deal with the complex and dangerous problems arising out of the Balkan AVar. Sir Edward Grey believed that had this Conference remained in being diplomacy might have been able to intervene effectively in July. 1914, before mobilisation was ordered and the vust armies began to march. In 1919 the desire for a permanent international conference was reinforced by a growing realisation that the Peace 'Treaties would reflect in many respects tli-e terrible bitterness left by the AVar.

The Dominions welcomed the creation of a permanent international organisation in which each Dominion would take its place as an independent and individual State. _ The Covenant, based upon these principles, was drafted in the main by a British and a Dominion statesman. Lord Cecil and General Smuts. Under it all signatory States have equal rights. The creation of the League was therefore a new departure in the constitution of the Empire. The Peace Conference decided that Germany’s colonial possessions in Africa and the Pacific, together with Iraq, Syria and Palestine, which had belonged to the Turkish Empire, should he transferred to the administration of one or other of the victorious Allies under mandates held by them from the League of Nations. There wore three types of mandate, varying with the stage of progress reached by the territory concerned. Under this system Iraq, Palestine and German East Africa wore assigned to Great Britain; German South-West Africa to the South African Union; and various Pacific islands to Australia and New Zealand. Iraq has since been given independent status, defined bv treaty with Great Britain ns the Mandatory Power. In the other mandates assigned to the British Empire there has been no change, except that German South-West Africa has, in accordance with its mandate, been definitely incorporated in the Union.

STATUTE OF WESTMINSTER. The most memorable of the achievements of the Imperial Conference during the reign were three in number. The first was the establishment of the Imperial AVar Cabinet during the war, as already described. The second and third, also alluded to above, were the steps which led to the passing of the Statute of AVestniinster and the adoption of Imperial preference. The constitutional question formed the main subject of the 192 b and 1930 Conferences and resulted in a declaration that Britain and the Dominions “are autonomous communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations.”

The 1930 Conference recommended that legislation should be passed to give statutory effect to the definition, and the consequence was the passing of the Statute of AVestminster in the following year. The general effect of the statute was to establish complete equality of status between the British anil Dominion Parlaments, each being free to pass such legislation on any subject as it considered desirable.

The statute has since been adopted bv parallel legislation in tlie Canadian, South African and Irish Free State Parliaments. The Australian and New Zealand Parliaments have taken no action upon it.