DOMINIONS AND FOREIGN POLICY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19764, 15 April 1926, Page 13

DOMINIONS AND FOREIGN POLICY.

MISUSE OF WORD “NATION” PROBLEMS OF EMPIRE. LANGUAGE OP SECESSION. (From Otjb Own Coubespokdekt.) LONDON, February 24. At University College last evening Mr J. H. Morgan, professor of constitutional law, gave the first of four lihodea lectures on "The Dominions and Foreign Policy." _ Mr Amery, Secretary of State for the Dominion Affairs, presided. When one listens to a lecture such as this, one is struck with the fact that while statesmen and politicians appear to grope blindly along the road of Imperial development, the student knows almost exactly what the dominions should do or should not do, and what the Home Government may do and ought to do. The student defines certain limits beyond which the dominions must not go, while the states, men oi those dominions promptly proceed to go beyond ’hose limits. But even a student such as Professor Morgan admits that the constitutional developments in the, British Empire have outgrown the categories of the law, and the status of the dominion* defy definition. The lecturer said that 11 years ago Lord Milner, writing on the subject of Dominions and Foreign Policy,” said: “Thi* problem is extremely urgent and at the earns time of great difficulty. I have been thinking about it for many years, and the more I think the more complicated it appears to be.” The problem had become more urgent since then. The whole trouble arose out of the term "nations” as applied to the dominions. The dominions weio not nations in international law, and to talk of the "foreign” relations of one dominion with another was to introduce a disintegrating conception. The legal unity of the Empire was hard to reconcile with separate representation of the dominions in the League of Nations. When a dominion statesman declared that the dominions had acquired the right to make peace or declare war he was unconsciously using the language of secession. Certain schools of thought would go on to suggest diplomatic representatives of the dominion in all the foreign capitals, and a British ambassador in the capital cities of the dominions. Ixigic applied to politics was a devae '"■'v thing If we got into the habit o: t g in these terms other countries would le misled. THE TEST OF VAR. When the British Government negotiated rights for British nationals with_ a foreign power, those rights usually (he did not say always) were secured for British subjects in all our dominions whether those dominions reciprocated or not. That was only another way of saying that, as the result of British diplomacy, they secured the benefits attaching to British nationals and escaped the obligations. There could hardly, he thought, be a stronger argument for maintaining unimpaired the principle that in foreign affairs the British Government should remain the supreme negotiating party. , Then there was the war test when the rational status vanished into thin air. It a foreign power declared war against Britain, then every British subject was an enemy of the country with whom Britain wa* at war. No dominion could take up the attitude of nautralitv, though it might decline to assist in the military operations of the Mother Country. Every British ship was liable to seizure. The property of every British subject in the enemy’s country was liable to confiscation, and the property of the enemy in every part of the Empire was liable to confiscation. The neutrality of the dominions did not exist. It was the failure to recognise this fact which had been the cause of much of the discussion during the last fiVei years. POSITION OF THE CROWN. . Lord Milner deplored the that we had no such thing as Imperial citizenship. That was the result of the constitutional development of the dominions. A dominion might discriminate between the peoples of the Empire, but a foreign power knew no such distinction. A British subject, unlike British goods, could not have a geographical mark o; origin. International law had not yet digested the status of the dominions. When an enemy came to talk with us in the gate they would not ask us whether we were English, Irish, Australian, or New Zealander. Therefore the British Government should remain the supreme negotiator. Unless they admitted that the King must be guided it the last resort by the advice of the British Cabinet alone they would put the Crown in the position of having to choose between conflicting advice from various Dominion Cabinets. This would mean that the King would act alone —a most unconstitutional position. Permanent dominion representation in foreign capitals with plenary powers would mean that the British Empire as a body politic would have ceased to exist. The real difficulty was to secure continuous consultation, and he was in favour of the continuous presence in London of a Resident Minister from each dominion, or consultation with the High Commissioners. But an Imperial Executive Council would be impossible. Diplomatic negotiations must always remain a matter of personal contact and influence. Decisions were often eleventh-hour affairs, and turned on a word or the emphasis of a phrase. You could not empanel British Empire delegates in time to discuss the really momentous situations which changed the couse o' histoij. If war came again he believed it would come as thief in the night. Diplomatic affairs must be conducted in secret. The more there were taken into confidence the more difficult would it become. The position would be that of a poker player who has a friend behind ma back discussing the merits of the cards he held in his hand. NURSERY OF FREEDOM. Upon Britain fell the responsibility for the safety cf the Empire throughout the East, where a malevolent. Power was everywhere neeking to undermine our dominion. Revolutionary propaganda had _ destroyed both the Russian and German Empires, and a distinguished German soldier, General Hoffmann, had predicted to him that such propaganda would destroy the British Empire also. If he had to distinguish the British Empire from the empires of the ancient world no should say her supreme distinction lay_in that she was the nursery of freedom. Tha empires of the ancient world were conceived in war and brought forth in slavery, m slavery they arose and through slavery they fell. The Empire of Great Britain had grown out o: the adventurous spirit of he» children. Verily, she should not pass away. COLLOQUIAL INTERCOURSE. Mr Amery said Professor Morgan had put before them something of the immense complexity and difficulty of the problem with which we were confronted. They must haye felt, how dangerous it would be to attempt in any formal way to define and write down the constitution of the British Empire. They were dealing, in the growth of the British Empire, with new ideas, new inceptions, and new purposes which could hbt be fit.ed into existing categories. If we attempted to solve the problems by a process of common sense, working them out in practice, then no believec the genius of our race would nnd a solution. He agreed in putting colloquial intercourse in the forefront. The of empire cculd always be solved, and had been arain and again in recent yearsever leading statesmen of the Empire met around the same table.