A CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION.

Free Lance, Volume XVIII, Issue 957, 14 November 1918, Page 8

A CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION.

The Rights of the Dominions. THE special cable, made public last Sunday, concerning the consultation of the Dominions on all future matters to be dealt with by the statesmen of the Allied nations was very welcome. It removed grave fear which had been roused by previous messages which conveyed the impression that the rights of the Dominion with regard to the establishment of tariffs were to be over-ridden or denied. We feel sure that our National Government, or whoever may represent that Government in London, will be just as insistent upon the right of New 'Zealand tot impose whatever duties, either upon German or any other goods, that the New Zealand Legislature may authorise the Government to' l impose, as upon the non-return to Germany of her former possessions in the Pacific. Those who talk about economic warfare being unjustifiable must, so far at least as Germany is concerned, be either grossly ignorant or wilfully blind to outstanding facts. Does any sane person believe that, bad Germany been the victor in the Great War, she would have refrained from imposing serious economic disabilities upon Great Britain, and upon the British Over-Sea States ? Germany's treatment of Russia and Roumania shows clearly what Britain would have had to expect. ■a- «• ■* The economic conditions imposed upon Russia and Roumania, conditions now, very happily, to be abolished by the triumph of the Allies, made it practically impossible for any other nation, to trade with the two States,

and we may rest assured that Germany's victory would have spelt the complete and permanent exclusion of British trade from Western Asia, India, and possibly, also, China. 'During: the war period the great German commercial magnates have openly exulted, over the probability—the certainty as they so foolishly deemed it—of British trade being utterly driven out of all. foreign markets, and it is more than probable that German-made peaceterms would have meant the compulsory admission of German goods into Australia and New Zealand at a nominal rate of duty, whilst British-made goods would have been penalised. The mere fact- that in London there should ever have been any talk of tying the hands of the Dominions with regard to their tariffs on imported goods or f-.p-y trading legislation, sh'ows that New Zealand should appoint a Resident Minister in London, and, also, that the sooner the Prime Minister can get away to London the better-