DOMINIONS ROYAL COMMISSION

Otago Witness, Issue 3291, 11 April 1917, Page 24

DOMINIONS ROYAL COMMISSION

THE EMPIRE'S POTENTIALITIES. The Dominions Royal Commission, in its final and unanimous report, covering a five years' investigation, states that the commission visited every capital of every State and province in the live dominions, held 160 sittings, and examined 850 witnesses. Reviewing the dominions seriatim, the report inf erentially favours the existing development of the potentialities of Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Newfoundland in the order named. The Australian interior is largely waterless, and impossible for while Northern Queensland, northern Westralia, and the Northern Territory have not proved suitable for oarryhig a large white population. Nevertheless, enormous areas, mainly in the coastal belt, are as healthy as any country in the world, possess a beautiful climate, and the rainfall is sufficient. Yet Australia is the most sparsely-populated of any. civilised country in the world. The commission criticises' the undue aggregation of population in the Australian towns. The wheat areas are enormous, but are lacking in railways, and the average yield per acre is 50 per cent, below that of Canada. The mineralogical potentialities of Australia are enormous,' particularly those of Queensland, which many of the commissioners believe to rank first of all the States -mineralogically. • New Zealand is desoribe'd as a splendid agricultural country—another Britain of the Southern Seas. In social legislation and the even distribution of wealth New Zealand is probably more advanced than any part of the Empire. The principal recommendation in the report is the creation of a permanent Imperial Development Board, under the direction ,of a permanent Imperial Conference, comprising 12 members intimately acquainted wtyk the Empire—seven representing Britain, India, and the Crown colonics, and one representative for each of the five dominions—with headquarters in London, but to make frequent Empire peregrinations. This board's main functions would be to complete and continue the work begun by the commission in regard to the relation of the production and distribution of food and raw materials throughout the Empire, scientific research, the employment of the Empire's capital in the development of Empire resources, emigration within the Empire, steamship.),, cables, and railways in so far as these are contributory to Imperial development, legislation affecting trade, and the preparation of Imperial statistics. Tins board would be purely advisory in its initial stages, and must not encroach on the political or administrative machinery of the self-governing dominions. Its principal duty would be to initiate or report on schemes remitted by the Imperial Conference in participation with the various Governments concerned.

Tnter-lmperial communication demands vessels of greater draught and length, necessitating the deepening of harbours on the Suez, Cape of Good Hope, and Canadian routes, notably those at Fremantle, Adelaide, Melbourne, Lyt.telton, and Port Chalmers. The Australasian system of dry docks is inadequate except at Sydney. Shipping services will need reviewing in

1920, when the Orient Company's contract expires, with a view to securing 18-knot services, landing British mails at Adelaide in 25 days 14 hours via Suez, in 28 days via the Cape, and in 25 days in New Zealand via the Halifax-Vancouver (transCanadian) route. Subsidised cervices must _ submit a schedule of freights to the various Governments concerned, so as to obviate differential rates inimical to Imperial trade. The commission recommends the creation of a Central Emigration Board, under British Governmental direction, with a consultative board comprising the dominions' representatives. The commission discountenances soldiers' emigration without adequate capital and training, but urges increased female emigration to redress the balance of the sexes.

The report recommends the Government acquisition of the Atlantic cable and of the land lino from Nova Scotia to Montreal connecting with the Pacific cable. The nationalisation of private cables is becoming an urgent problem of statesmanship. The commission endorses Sir Joseph Ward's views on this subject, voiced at the Imperial Conference of 1911. Other recommendations are i —A quinquennial census of the Empire; interImperial itinerant exhibitions, and an international exhibition.

Unification of the legislation affecting patents, trade-marks, and companies, Modification of the double income tax. Uniform Imperial decimal coinage, and metric weights 1 and measures.