THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, MARCH 22, 1923. WELDING THE EMPIRE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18355, 22 March 1923, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, MARCH 22, 1923. WELDING THE EMPIRE.

The perennial question of Imperial co-operation has been raised in the quiet atmosphere of the House of Lords by Lord Strathspey, whom many New Zealanders will remember as the Earl of Seafield, an erstwhile resident of this Dominion and officer in its forces during the war. He has emphasised the urgency of giving practical form to the desire for Imperial unity, and urged that the overseas Dominions should be taken more closely into the conn deuce of the British Government and also be more intimately related to Britain by reciprocal trading. There is no doubt that the time is opportune for pressing this question upon the notice of political leaders throughout the Empire and for crystallising Imperial sentiment into a practical programme. The Duke of Devonshire's statement that the Government is considering far-reach-ing proposals for the improvement of trade within the Empire, and hopes soon to place these before representatives of the Dominions, adds weight to the anticipation that the welding of the Empire is likely to proceed apace. Lord Strathspey's particular suggestion that the High Commissioners should be given seats in the House of Lords, with titles appropriate to their respectnc Dominions, has no very great merit. It is not in the House of Lords that the vital details of Imperial politics can be ventilated. That House has no initiative in legislation with financial bearing, and Imperial co-opera-tion is inextricably concerned with j finance. Nor would the bestowal ! of the suggested dignity upon their I representative Commissioners make any great appeal to the Dominions, in whose democratic regard titular distinctions count fur much less than they do in the United Kingdom. In i the thinking of many of their people there is no obviously vital connection of a peerage or an hereditary title with a capacity to handle the business of the State.

Lord Strathspey's suggestion, however, does call attention to the desirability of overseas representatives being given an enlarged place in Imperial councils. The solution of this political problem has been the object of many other suggestions,

made with varying degrees of wisdom. The alternative being dismemberment or political co-opera-tion, it has been agreed that dismemberment is unthinkable. But how should political fusion be achieved? By Dominion representees sitting in the British Parliament, said some. That has been rejected on the ground of impracticability. The addition of representatives of the overseas territories, in order that the British Parliament should deal with their interests, would impose upon that Parliament a task too complex for its adequate performance. The Dominion members of that Parliament, moreover, if added to it on a quota having due regard to its important domestic functions, would be numerically uninfluential: they would be caught in the hurly-burly of British party strife, and be dragged at the chariotwheels of contending divisions. The crudity of this suggestion is especially evident when it is remembered | that a large assembly like the British House of Commons is anything but the best body to handle foreign affairs — the chief business in which the Dominions' representatives would join hands with British politicians. Delicate situations, involving issues not to be safely divulged in a promiscuous assembly, arise in foreign relations; and a reversal of the practice of reposing complete confidence : n the Executive in these matters is not to be contemplated. An alternative suggestion was made by Sir Joseph Ward at the Imperial Conference of 1911. It was that colonial representatives should be sent to another Parliament, specially constituted to deal with Imperial affairs. All the selfgoverning States of the Empire, the Motherland included, would send bodies of representatives to it, and it would have its own Executive, responsible directly to it and not to the British Parliament. Its funds would be provided by grants from the various local Parliaments. This suggestion did more credit to Sir Joseph Ward's heart than to his head. It met with a chorus of disapproval in the Conference. Its proposer withdrew it after hearing the opposing arguments of Mr. Andrew Fisher (Australia), General Botha (South Africa), Sir Wilfrid Laurier (Canada), and Mr. Asquith (Britain's Liberal Prime Minister) Mr. Asquith cogently argued that such a scheme would be "fatal to the fundamental conditions on which the Empire has been built up and carried on," and would ' 'impair, if not altogether destroy, the authority of the Government of the United Kingdom." It was a false move, likely to have a disintegrating effect. The Empire's constitutional solidarity has developed, and is calculated to increase most safely and surely, by careful modifications of institutions already in being, not by the paper creation of any brand new device.

The only satisfactory policy was given in a nutshell statement by Mr. Haldane: "It is not to some new kind of written constitution, with a new description of a common Parliament, that we look, but to gradual and cautious changes in the mode in which the sovereign takes advice." That policy has been well pursued through Imperial Conference, Committee of Imperial Defence, Imperial War Conference, and Imperial War Cabinet. It has passed on into the post-war period with an accumulated value and authority, and the projected Imperial and Economic Conferences that Mr. Bonar Law has invited for this year are in logical succession to those begun in 1887. Mr. Massey, in his statements of yesterday, has made reference to the extreme desirability of these two Conferences, being held, and the necessity for local difficulties being so overcome as to allow representatives of the overseas territories to attend them. Questions of Imperial defence and Imperial trade press for discussion. The naval protection of British commerce, the development of preferential trade within the Empire, and the institution of an Imperial wireless -scheme are .'all vital. There is a deep and wide spread desire for them, and the maintenance of this sentiment is greatly to be wished. In one respect, Mr. Massey and Lord Strathspey have voiced a common fear: it is that neglect of the present opportunity for Imperial discussion of, Imperial needs may mean serious loss. There is a critical peril that the delaying of practical schemes of Imperial co-operation may discourage Imperial sentiment. History shows that this sentiment has survived the severest tests in the past, but wise statesmanship will make alert efforts to avert such discouragements in the future. In his determination that New Zealand shall take an adequate share in shaping and sharing a wise and bold Imperial policy, the Prime Minister has the Dominion behind him