STATUS OF DOMINIONS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23940, 16 October 1939, Page 9

STATUS OF DOMINIONS

POSSIBLE EFFECT OF WAR NEW YORK, Oct. 14.' (Received Oct. 15, at 11 p.m.) The economist, Mr Hartley Grattan, who was recently in Australia, has published “ The Deadly Parallel,” in which he ‘declares that President Roosevelt is following President Wilson’s course, and if the United States goes to war the New Deal will disappear just as President Wilson’s New Freedom did. He does not subscribe to the view that the war will end the British Empire. He believes that her potential and actual strength precludes this,, but a general war would speed trends which could already be observed. India might suddenly and decisively gain her independence, Canada would come more firmly into the American orbit, and Australia and New Zealand would b® likely to seek American protection if the United States was powerful. Nevertheless, he argues that war is more likely to increase the dominions’ status in relation to Britain than to result in dissolution of the Empire.