The New Zealand Times. TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 1917. INDIA AND THE EMPIRE

New Zealand Times, Volume XLII, Issue 9630, 10 April 1917, Page 4

The New Zealand Times. TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 1917. INDIA AND THE EMPIRE

It is now universally conceded that India must in any scheme of Imperial union, or federation —whichever it may bo called —find a place. For years tho talk has been, among the federationists, of a federation from which India was tacitly excluded. When the claims of tho great dependency were raised they were generally received with the welcome reserved for things inconvenient, and before the subject was dismissed something was said about further progress being necessary in self-govern-ment. For this kind of treatment the day has gone by. India has taken an Imperial and manly part in the war. Indian soldiers have fought well on the battlefields of France and Flanders; they have guarded and fought for the Suez Canal; they have fought for tho cause at Kiao-chau, storming German entrenchments by tho side of the soldiers of Japan; they have met and defeated German levies in every part of East Africa; they have, above all, made a wonderful campaign in Mesopotamia, where they are still fighting with great valour and success. In tho eyes of the whole East they are the conquerors of the sacred city of the Caliphs, and they are regarded as tho conquerors of tho great Eastern province of tho Turkish Empire. Moreover, the support of the Empire from all parts of India, and from all classes of the Indian population, including the protected States, is substantial, sympathetic and persistent. Indian loyalty, in short, has—to the astonishment of Prussian militarism, and the confusion of its most cherished schemes—stood every test. Tho claim of India, therefore, to he included in the scheme of Empire—whatever that scheme may bo after the war —is established beyond question. In drawing attention pointedly to the fact. Sir Joseph Ward performed a substantial service.

The problem involved has two main difficulties. One concerns the character of tho Indian Government, the other the habits of the Indian people. The first is political, the other racial, and of the two the political difficulty is tho more easy to overcome. It is in fact a difficulty not confined to India, for the Crown colonics present it with tho same force. These and India are not like tho Oversea Dominions —as they are specially called —selfgoverned. It is the hope of a school of statesmen that one day they may all enjoy that privilege, which is the embodiment of the best form of human liberty. These are opposed by a larger section of thinkers, who, with the best of intentions towards tho countries under Crown government—specially socalled in the parlance of the day—regard the democracy of their populations as in the nature of things impossible. Than this, in fact, there is no subject of such controversy. It is a controversy apparently quite irreconcilable. That hopelessness constitutes the gravest problem of the South African Dominion, and is, for similar reasons, felt as acutely in all tho Crown-governed countries. In the eyes of political men it is an issue which cannot bo settled, if over, without centuries of educational and experimental effort. To expect a settlement before consolidating the Empire on bettor lines than the present is quire out of tho question. Happily, there is no need to wait for any such settlement. Autonomy of tho Federated States is the keynote of tho Empire, in theory, and in practice its sheet-anchor. And It is possible, nay, easy, to establish autonomy without imposing new conditions of constitutional government on any Stato of the Federation. The one thing essential to stability of Federation is to give each unit its right to a voice in matters purely Imperial. That voice can be exercised whatever the form of government may be in the case of each unit. Tho local government of each unit is an affair of autonomy, which controls development of tho parts in any constitutional direction, without interfering with the Imperial stability of the Imperial whole. 'Whatever form the Imperial

governing factor may assume, this will have to be recognised, as many thinkers now foresee. The problem is not simple. But in comparison with what everyone must agree to regard as the immediately unattainable —such, for example, as die establishment in India of democracy on purely Western lines—the difficulty is infinitesimal. The racial problem can only be settled by compromise. In the old Roman Empire the privilege of Roman citizenship was enjoyed equally by men of every part, Italy, Spain, Britain, Gaul, Greece, Pontus,. Carthage. There wore limitations and difficulties and confusions which the genius of Julius Caesar foresaw with clear understanding, and might, b..c for his untimely assassination by men who failed to appreciate the greatness of his statesmanship, have settled. But the conditions which the British Empire has to face are very different, and the greatest of them is tho dominance of tho white race, which is the only one of the many races involved which could have made tho Empire, and is., in the opinion, of many thinkers, tho only one which can hold it together. The fact that this race insists on having its special function protected bv keeping its own habitat white as itself, is tho most stubborn of all the facts of Empire. The bearing of this fact on the Imperial problem is emphasised by the great gulf that separates tho social and industrial conditions of the white race from those of the other races. It is largely, after all, a question of the habitat. Is there room within the Empire for these races so conflicting in ideas and customs to live their lives apart ? The question is important because the congestion of the vast Indian populations presses for relief. The question is answered by the patent fact that there is room for that surplus in Africa and tho Pacific Islands. Moreover, tho conquest of Mesopotamia supplies a limitless prospect of elbow room, in congenial conditions, _ with tho stirring stimulus of ambition in the shape of a great wealthy autonomous State under the Imperial flag of Britain, standing as an outpost and bulwark of the Pax Britannica, in the midst of what is now a chaos of races rotten with misgovernment, for all time. It has, of recent years, often been said that this racial problem of the Empire can be beneficially settled by compromise on the question of the habitat, as Sir Joseph Ward pointed out at tho Imperial Conference of 1911. The fall of Baghdad has made this more obvious than ever. If the coming Imperial Conference displays tact, imagination, historical knowledge and some eloquent power of persuasion, the racial problem can be settled to tho satisfaction of all concerned before many months are over our heads. But for that success tho possession of Mesopotamia ia essential. Thus tho case for the retention of that conquest as one of the conditions of peace, has become imperative.