IMPERIAL FEDERATION

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8454, 13 June 1913, Page 3

IMPERIAL FEDERATION

BY SIB JOHN FINDLAY, K.C. (Continued.! Mr Asquith then repeated his reply to the Memorialists, “that while His Majesty’s Government had the strongest sympathy with any practical step in the suggested direction, if it came to anything in the nature of setting up a new political or new constitutional machine, the initial proceeding must have the unanimous consent or the Dominions themselves.’’ This I take to mean that the British Government does not object to a scheme for “associating the Oversea Dominions in a more permanent manner with the conduct of Imperial affairs,” but that it must be devised and unanimously assented to by the Dominions before Great Britain will take any action. Candour compels me to say that in the attitude just outlined, and in his general bearing towards Sir Joseph Ward’s proposals, Mr Asquith showed himself possessed of very, little sympathy with any political or constitutional changes aiming at an organised and closer Imperial unity. lam sure that he, at least, left that impression upon every member of the Conference, and that it was in some measure duo to this that Sir Joseph Ward’s scheme did not obtain more willing and sympathetic consideration from the Oversea representatives. Why, in such a vital matter as this, should the Imperial authorities wait with their hands folded until the Oversea Dominions devise and unanimously agree upon some scheme of Imperial Federation P Is it not at least as much the concern of the Motherland as of her Dominions? Is it not plainly a case for mutual thought and action? If, as seems the case, the Dominions think that the Home Government and not they should take the initiative, while the Home Government thinks otherwise, we are really left to assume that — “Lord Chatham with his sword undrawn, _ _ Is waiting for Sir Richard Strachan; Sir Richard, longing to be at’em, Is waiting for the Earl of Chatham. Mr Asquith says that if the proposals amount to a new political or constitutional machine, there must be, as an initial preliminary to British action, unanimous agreement among the Dominions. This language implies that the present “political and constitutional machine” for the governance of Empire demands no action at the hands of the British Government. It ignores the fact that the present system is based on an “old colonialism” which is dead, upon machinery which is mainly a collection of forms and rules no longer applicable to the true Imperial relations between the Motherland and her autonomous Dominions. It forgets, indeed, that it is now mainly by ignoring these forms, which express or' imply throughout their whole series Colonial subjection to Britain, and by acting as 3, in spite of them, the autonomy of the Dominions were “absolute, unfettered and complete,” that the present system is tolerated at all. I have already in earlier pages tried to show how far the old constitutional side of our Empire fails to fit the Imperial development of tcnday. Hence those whq suggest some system of Imperial Federation—or at least, to use the words of the memorial to Mr Asquith, “some practical stops to associate the • Oversea Dominions in a more permanent manner with the conduct of Imperial a f fairs” —are not open to the charge of attempting to “scrap heap” a suitable, reasonably satisfactory and well-tried system in order to erect in its place “a new political or constitutional machine.” They merely desire to' substitute for the antiquated mechanism devised to turn the wheels of a now inanimate colonialism, some machine capable of bringing a great Empire of free nations into indissoluble union and effective co-operation. “Nothing in progression,” said Burke, “can, rest oh its original plan. We might as well think of rocking a grown man in ■the cradle of an infant.” Mr Asquith talks as if the people who would make a better nrovision for the grown man are meddlesome - innovators, whose scheme will ho entitled to consideration by the British Government only if it comes before them recommended for adoption by the previous unanimous approval of all the Dominions. Why, unless it is intended as an additional barrier to closer Imperial union, is this unanimity insisted on? Surely, if Canada, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand agreed upon a scheme of Federation, the mere fact that Newfoundland disapproved of it would not disentitle it to the sympathetic consideration of the British Government—surely if such a scheme were agreed upon only by the greater in area and population of the Dominions it might well be favourably considered for adoption by the Imperial authorities, especially if it contained a provision lor the other Dominions to come into it later if and when _ they chose. In such a matter as this, Mr Asquith, despite all his great mental powers and attainments, discloses his limitations as a statesman. He has that intellectual conservatism which distrusts aspirations and the changes and innovations requisite for their realisation. .A lawyer, great both by training and natural aptitude, ho has a lawyer’s pertinacious adherence to tradition, precedent, 'time-honoured forms and institutions. Veneration for antiquity is congenial to his mind. He wants the Empire to develop along the old, well-trodden path of the past, and with him, it seems to me, the main obstacle to devising a workable federation is not so much the difficulty of the task, great though it admittedly is, as his constitutional disinclination to attempt it.

But let us look at these proposals from the point of view of _ both the Motherland and the Dominions. Two vital questions lie at the threshold of our consideration of any large scheme of organised Imperial unity. The first is its practicability and the second its utility. Can it be made workable, and even if it can, will the results justify its adoption? A negative answer to either of these Questions would dispose of the scheme. But practicability is a word of _vague meaning. The Roman Constitution was one of the most clumsy and illadapted systems the world has seen, and yet through and under it the practical Roman built up the greatest of the ancient Empires. The practicability of a constitution —rigid or flexible —depends mainly on the people who have to work it and live under it. No people, not even the Romans, have shown a greater genius for adapting their forms of government to their needs and development than the AngloSaxons. Thev, more than any oth°r nation, have proved that it is obedience that makes Government, not the forms bv which It is caH°d. The virtues of the British Constitution are great and many, but ■ hot? much of its nnbroken success it owes to the political instincts of its people may be better understood by asking how it would have worked, say, in France. Thus,

then, an institution or constitution workable in one nation may be quite unworkable in another nation of different origin and political aptitudes. We, at any rate, know that whatever alteration wo may make in the present Imperial system, our past history is sponsor for our making it work if it can be worked at all. The next consideration to bo insisted on is that while “perfect operation is impossible in any constitution, tho point at which it can properly be declared unworkable is either where the results do not, so to speak, pay for the running of the machine, or where much better results can clearly be achieved by another method. Applying these observations to a federation, it would not be enough to condemn it that it worked clumsily, expensively or badly. It would still justify its existence if it produced re suits which in value, or on a fair, balance of advantages and disadvantages, outweighed its defects. And it *ould still more fully justify its existence of these results could not be Achieved by any other discovered or discoverable method. lam premising these reflections because many hasty critics appear to think that a constitution stands as soon as they prove that it works imperfectly and ■ias serious detects. This superficial consideration is responsible for most of tho wholesale condemnation bestowed on the American’Federal Constitution, and yet Mr Bryce, after a long and thorough study of that constitution, its history, operations and results, its drawbacks and defects, declares that it exeels “every other written constitution for the intrinsic excellence of its scheme, its adaptation to the circumstances of the people, the simplicity, brevity. and precision of its language and its judicious mixture of definiteness in principle with elasticity in details.” And that with all its shortcomings ill practice, it has “achieved the great enterprise of creating a nation by means of an instrument of Government.”

(To he Continued.)