The New Zealand Times. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1923. EMPIRE AND OVERSEAS

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11663, 30 October 1923, Page 4

The New Zealand Times. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1923. EMPIRE AND OVERSEAS

Oversea support of the League of Na tions is flow a recognised fact. Among tile peoples living comparatively close to the League there is a blur of feeling, for men are disturbed in their judgments by pronouncements of various degrees of recklessness. Some of these apply tests of mathematical precision ; qthers throw suspicion on the motives of prominent Leaguers; others sneer at the Orcadian simplicity which seeks impossibilities and ignores practical difficulties; while others, again, express fears lest the operations of the League may lead tp the submerging of the principle of nationality under a flood of international anarchy. AH tacitly forget to consider the main objective of the League as seriously and praetjcally as it deserves to be considered. The dominions are prominent as supporters of the League, because of its objective. Tile Jjoague stands for the arbitrament of reason, in substitution of the arbitrament of force, for tl|e settlement of all international difficulties whatever. Realising this to ho the greatest objective possible in the affairs of men, the dominions have accepted the League unreservedly. Their people know the difficulties in the way, quite as well as the people who live near the centre of the League. Nevertheless, they have cheerfully accepted from the League mandates for the government of territories that have changed h a uds in consequence of the war. Their accejjtapce of the League is the loyal acceptance which, seeing the worth of the objective, considers the difficulties in the way as matters of practical adjustment by goodwill. That is the reason that Lord Robert Cecil, one of the League’s main champions, declared to the Imperial Conference delegates that “the support of the League by the dominions is one of the few really encouraging signs of the times.”

Consider the occasion,. The League of Nations was giving a dinner to the Conference delegates. This because the League recognised the loyal support it was receiving from the oversea dominions of the British Empire, And fjord Cecil, unable to be present, sent the above message, which struck the keynote of the gathering. The fact is emphasised that the dominions of the Empire are for peace, They joined 111 the universal aspiration for permanent peace among men, which grew out of the horrors of the war; they have remained true to that aspiration ; speaking each for tlm Empire their motto is “The Empire is Peace.” That phrase, when first coined, was a more piece of diplomatic camouflage, used to throw dust in the eyes of rivals for powor in Europe, as insincere as the Imperial coiner. But wit.li the dominions of to-day, who arc sincere, tho

face value of the phrase is its real value. The dominions did not stand aloof during the war, forming their views as onlookers standing in safe places. They marched to the sound of the cannon, because the Empire, of which they are integral parts, had accepted the challenge of the arch-enemy, and they cleaved to the Empire from first to last in the van of the conflict. Throughout that conflict they observed for themseives; they realised the enormous price of the settlement eventually made on the lines of justice and reason for the sake of freedom in the world; and they came to the conclusion that these great things should be preserved without paying such enormous price in the lives and possessions of men, in the devastation of States, and the dislocation of civilisation. The settlement of peace in permanence is not easy. But these loyal supporters of justice, righteousness and reason, freedom and civilisation, see clcarly that the first duty of mankind is to remove tl.e difficulties, and, so seeing, they proclaim by their attitude that disturbers of the peace will have to reckon with them. That was recognised when the Imperial Government sent out its famous S.O.S. from the scene of backsliding, unprincipled dealing, and dishonest diplomacy in the neighbourhood of the Dardanelles. The response of the dominions stopped the Unspeakable Turk on that occasion. Their attitude, then universally recognised, is not forgotten to-day. “One of the most encouraging signs of the times,” ns Lord .Robert- Cecil so pithily said in his message. That the centre of the Eanpire is with the overseas. Lord Salisbury indicated ill proposing the toast of the League of Nations. That the said support is shared by all sections of political thought. Air Thomas demonstrated when he declared the views of the Labourites, about whom, as supporters of the Empire, some doubts have been felt. The Labourites, said Air Thomas, are proud of the Empire—“this Empire which is Peace”—adding that “when they came into power there would be no party jealousy of preserving the traditions and greatness of the Empire.” This evidence of Labour's share in the solidarity of the Empire is also one of the most encouraging signs, of the times. It is so because the Epipire is the strongest force among men for justice, righteousness, and freedom. These ideals may at times have been obscured, but they have never been lost sight of. They have been oxploited by designing men sometimes ill the course of history, but the evil influence has ever been overcome in the end, and justice done. The last Boer war saw the exploiting, apd the free admission of the Boers as selfgoverning freemen to' the Empire was the eventual amendment; and the prominence of South Africa among,*the I oversea dominions, with its Prime Alinister to-day giving shrewd, loyal advice at the table of the Imperial Conference, convincingly pounds off fhp whole of that episode. We commend, therefore, to the Labour Party in New Zealand the declaration of the Labour leader, Air J. H. Thomas, ALP. They should not bo led away by the shibboleth of “Imperialism,” which has been used to the detriment of Imperial loyalty. The world has seen something in the course of its history of the policy denounced as Imperialism, just as it has seen something of the policy denounced as “militarism-” But tlje i British Empire is not Imperialism in this bad sense. Neither is Imperial defence, with its patriotic duty, militarism. This, if Mr Thomas is right, ( is recognised by t)ie great bulk of La- j bour ip Britain, even ip this time of 1 the stress and hardship felt by so large j a portion of Labour. It would be well if the fact were authoritatively recognised for Labour in this pominicn. For then the support of all sections of the Dominion to the motto “The Empire is Peace” would be a thing strongly established. The leaders of tfie Lahour Party here have now, in the crisis the world is going through, a great opportunity. The Popiinjon expects til We to promptly embrace it.