THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 1937 EMPIRE CONFERENCE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22620, 7 January 1937, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 1937 EMPIRE CONFERENCE

Cabinet is to meet next week in order to discuss the agenda for the Imperial Conference to be held this year. No business of greater or more urgent importance could be named as necessitating Cabinet attention. Whether the Prime Minister has already received from the Dominions Office a suggested list of subjects, or is summoning his colleagues with a view to compiling one particularly inclusive of subjects of intimate interest to New Zealand, does not very much matter. In either case, it will be well to take as broad an approach as possible to the necessary task. The assumption underlying the Imperial Conference is that the Empire is a real unit, not a nominal unity : and this assumption is in accordance with fact. It is true that the growth of liberty within the world-wide British Commonwealth, a growth of which the Imperial Conference is itself an irrefutable witness, has been a feature of modern times; but the steady and consistent extension of self-govern-ment to the chief oversea territories has been granted and accepted as a means of promoting co-operation. The question of the Dominions' right to secede is mainly an academic one ; the desirability of maintaining the union, so that the utmost good may come from it for the benefit of the several parts and of them all collectively considered, has been established as a practical axiom. Of the British Commonwealth, indeed, it can be truly said that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This unitary conception, as now generally held, is still somewhat novel—it has only emerged in recent years after an interval of centrifugal tendency that negatived for a while the principle of domination by the Mother Country—but it has become quickly mature. Now the need is to give the conception a strengthening and developing reality, to harness the idea, to make it serve useful ends. When Cabinet discusses a possible agenda for the Imperial Conference, therefore, it should proceed on broad lines, remembering that no part of the Empire is now so distant from the rest that it can afford to think only in terms of parish politics. The wisdom of this approach is clearly seen when the greatest issues of the present day are given thought. They relate to the urgent alternative of war or peace. While the mass of the population in every country —and especially in the countries of that part of the world that used to be called " New " and was customarily conceived as insularly remote from the centre of modern civilisation — may be disposed to preoccupation by its local affairs, wiser minds see differently. They know that war has a habit in these days of spreading like a prairie fire. The earlier illusion that any nation may, if it will, avoid entanglement in a conflict and go its own way aloof and unhurt, has been exposed as false. In the World War, for instance, the United States found that isolation was impossible. War anywhere is now liable to engulf all lands; at least it entails provision for self-defence, and its dislocating interference with trade is too obvious to brook denial. From so elementary a fact arises a necessity, within the Empire to which New Zealand belongs, for concerted means of defence, for close understanding and collaboration in all efforts to foster peace ; in a word, for a common foreign policy. At the forthcoming Imperial Conference this necessity must be faced with greater earnestness and wisdom than at any time since the World War. To avoid it, or to slur discussion of it, would be both morally wrong and politically foolish. New Zealand has developed a habit of regarding matters of foreign policy as best directed by the Homeland. To a considerable degree, this habit, which coincides with certain constitutional facts and practical expediencies, is worth maintaining. But all the constituent self-governing parts of the Empire are not equally inclined to do this; and because of separate membership in the League each of these has individual responsibility in international affairs. Cabinet should be ready with an expression of its mind in these affairs, and co-operate in the framing of an agenda that will give them opportunity for full ventilation. Only by such means can the Empire's welfare and its service for world peace be effectively achieved.

This Imperial Conference need give no thought to any further modification of the constitutional framework of the Empire, in spite of possible pressure from the Irish Free State, and perhaps India, for an overhaul of it. However, to give vigorous attention to intra-imperial trade and communications, as well as to means of inter-governmental consultation throughout the realm, is plainly desirable. There need be no spirit of anti-foreign nationalism, but without hesitation and without apology there should be an effort to consolidate the gains won by earlier union of resources. Much spadework has been done —some of it with competence —but there is much left to do. In all its manifold aspects, with emphasis on the economic, the assurance of a better future for British shipping ought to be attempted : it is vital to the security and prosperity of the whole Empire. And by the mention of economic emphasis should be recalled the inevitably expanding place given by recent Imperial Conferences to matters of industry and commerce and to migration. By the steppingstones of 1926, 1030, 1032, a way has been partly constructed over difficult places: it is for 1037 to fashion it solidly, as the basis of an efficient road on which all the intercourse of the Empire can better travel.