BRITISH EMPIRE TO-DAY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19497, 29 November 1926, Page 9

BRITISH EMPIRE TO-DAY.

THROUGH FRENCH EYES.

CHANGES IN RELATIONS,

FOREIGN POLICY FACTOR.

Bt Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright. A. and N.Z. PARIS. Nov. 27. The unobtrusive mariner in which the changes in the relations between the Dominions and Britain have been announced Las made Continental commentators slow to realise the importance of the alterations in Britain's foreign policy. 51. Jules Sauerwein, writing in Le Matin, savs: " Suppose that under the pressure of population it becomes necessary to examine the question of what territories are available for Germany, Italy arid any other country with an expanding population, such a question can no longer he referred to Britain, but must be referred to the Dominions also. " Colonials throughout the world are difficult people to persuade. They make a great fuss over a slice of territory at the Antipodes, yet some day it will be necessary to share up the territories of the Erlobe on si fairer basis as the only way of preventing sanguinary conflicts. " Britain might be ready to make concessions, but in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand the Parliaments would rise as one man. " While all Asia is in a ferment the Imperial Conference makes a decision which is humiliating for India. Whereas New Zealand can conclude treaties, India continues in a state of impotence and vassalage. Certain British Dominions already treat India offensively, yet India is a land where fhe microbe of Bolshevism will readily grow." The writer Pertinax, in ail article in Echo de Paris, applies the description " Fascit " to the British Empire. He uses the term in its derivative sense of a composite bundle. He says it needs common defence to bind the Empire in " fasces." The Imperial Conference showed that the British League of Nations is in some respects keeping aloof from the Geneva League, and is determined to maintain its integrity.

The " fasces " were bundles of elm or birch rods, from which the head of an axe projected. They were carried in ancient Rome by the lictors, attendants on the higher magistrates, as representing the power over life and limb reposing in the kings and in republican Rome in the consuls.