THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS TUESDAY, AUGUST 22, 1933 A POLICY FOR THE EMPIRE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21576, 22 August 1933, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS TUESDAY, AUGUST 22, 1933 A POLICY FOR THE EMPIRE

A conference to be held at Toronto next month, to which Australian delegates passed through Auckland yesterday, has hitherto attracted little attention, yet it will undertake an important task and seems likely to do it well. This gathering will be entirely unofficial. It will not try to formulate any statement of findings, and will probably not put on record any series of resolutions. To be in the spotlight is the last thing it wishes. This does not mean that it will have anything to hide, nor that it can pursue its task altogether without publicity; but its purpose is heart-to-heart talk about urgent things, and freedom for this will be all the greater because of the absence of need to fit conclusions into a neat, ready-made framework. It may succeed without passing a single resolution; it may fail without any obligation to offer public apology or explanation : and a time that lias seen so much failure of conferential attempts to do what was prescribed and expected will think no less of it for either lack. If conference resolutions could put anything right that is wrong, there would have been an overdose of prosperity long ago. This conference —to come to description of it—is to be all-British, an Imperial Conference minus the trappings of officialdom and the fears of critical judgments that make formal assemblies mince their words. It will follow the biennial conference of the Institute of Pacific Relations now busy at Banff. British delegations to that assembly will go on to Toronto; in pursuance of this arrangement, Mr. Downio Stewart is expected to lead New Zealand delegates there also. It has been promoted by the Royal Institute of International Affairs and affiliated societies in the Dominions. While its proceedings will be unofficial, they wrll not be merely academic. The participation of men of ripe experience in world problems, especially as seen through British eyes, ensures this. To mention the names of Viscount Cecil, Sir Herbert Samuel and Sir Robert Borden among the participants is guarantee enough that the occasion will not be wasted.

This Toronto assembly will be complementary to the Ottawa Conference. That adventured in the sphere of economics and sought practical ways of devoting and directing the material resources of the Empire with a view to mutual service within the British family. It took up the task begun by the previous Economic Conference in London, which had merged its sessions in those of the Imperial Conference, and it essayed to give immediate practical shape to hopes surviving the failure of that conference on the economic side. On the other side were constitutional questions, boldly handled by the Imperial Conference of 1926 in its memorable declaration about "autonomous communities within the Empire, equal in status and in no way subordinate one to another, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown." This principle afterwards had reaffirmation and amplification in the Statute of Westminster. But no one knowing the nature and history of the Empire can miss the fact that events march ahead of official and legal declarations. These declarations have little or no creative effect; their service is rather to register than to cause progress. They are the hands of the clock, not its works, and they tend to be a little "slow." They are verbal descriptions of achievements, not achievements in themselves. They are useful as harness, but as harness can be outgrown and outworn. This generation has seen much change in intra-Imperial relations. From 1917 onward the adjustments have been rapid: Dominion Ministers in the Empire's War Council, virtually an enlarged British Cabinet ; Dominions individually signing the Peace Treaty and the Covenant of the League; three of them accepting mandates over what had been enemy territory; all of them ready to rally again to the Homeland at the Chanak crisis of 1922, yet realising a growing need for facilities of consultation on foreign policy; Canada's separate negotiation of a fisheries agreement with the United States in 1923 ; similar treaties made by others; Dominion legations and envoys in foreign capitals; and so to the "autonomous communities" declaration and, last of all, the vagaries of the Irish Free State. There is evident need for renewed understanding, for the good of all. History has something to teach about the disintegration of empires by other means than assault from outside, and such a warning, although not closely applicable to the British Commonwealth, is a salutary reminder of the danger of drift, by stages difficult to see and check, toward a like catastrophe. The British tie is made of heart-strings, and external shocks have proved more tonic than affrighting; yet it is needful to heed the requirements of the whole organism, lest inert blood-streams, dulled nerves and loose joints bring general weakness. In their developing individualism, the Dominions prove the original strength of the British stock, but as "Dominion status" gets definition as well as reality there is a call to examine the residuum of "Imperial status." It, too, requires clear understanding and definition, in order that the most may be made of it. In the midst of pressing needs to develop each component unit of the Empire to the utmost of economic capacity there ought not to be overlooked the strength that comes, through realised unity, in effective constitutional partnership. This is essential for the right management of consultation within the whole commonwealth and for the due expression of the world-wide British mind in a coherent foreign policy. All the world will be the better for the Empire's heed of this, and at Toronto much can be done to make that heed intelligent and influential.