Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1926 IMPERIAL CONFERENCE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LII, Issue 17165, 15 October 1926, Page 6

Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1926 IMPERIAL CONFERENCE

Statesmen of the Empire have assembled in London for the Imperial Conference of 1926, the proceedings of which will be watched with great interest, lit the Dominions and with fervent hope that.means will be found for consolidating Empire interests and building up greater national , prosperity. A right reading of tho history of the relations of England and the Dominions in recent times is an essential preliminary to the proper assessing of the. possibilities of ihe approaching mooting. What must be borne in mind is that story of those numerous Empire gatherings is one of steady evolution. The evolution, it is true, moved in a direction .which would have confounded those who convened the first conference. But ’tho advance has. always been made in a spirit, of friendly co-operation and mutual goodwill; and if symmetrical development and ordered progress are to be maintained that spirit must continue. Nearly forty years have elapsed since the celebration’ of Queen Victoria’s jubilee led to the summoning of, the first Colonial Conference. It met in ail atmosphere which can hardly be understood to-day. There still survived in. England in 1887 something, of. the narrow utilitarian outlook which • caused Cobden to exclaim; •‘We shall be ruined by our foreign possessions. Only two years earlier Lord Blatchford, a former Permanent Under-Secretary for the Colonics, had confessed that he had once believed that, English policy contemplated the gradual sloughing of all colonies. As an antidote- to this dismal gospel, the ideal of close Imperial Federation was being fostered, but the obvious difficulties accompanying it prevented it ever becoming a popular cause. It- is curious to reflect that titty years ago some of the colonies were alarmed lest England should abandon them. This is noted by Sir George Fiddes, Permanent Under-Secretary for the Colonies 1916-21, in his recent book, “The Dominions and Colonial Office." Of, the .1887 gathering ho remarks: “It is almost incredible now that even at. this Conference the Natal representative could allude with anxiety to the idea repeatedly brought to his notice from several quarters, that South Africa, or at any rate Natal, might conceivably be abandoned by Great, Britain.’’ The lirst Colonial Conference, however, removed fears and allayed suspicious. Under the happy presidency of Sir Henry Holland (afterwards Viscount Knutsford), then Colonial Secretary, a feeling of sympathy, helpfulness, and active co-operation developed. Tho practical results appeared for a time to be leading towards Imperial Federation in some shape, but tho spirit of, colonial nationalisation grew rapidly until the Great War, and the ideals*it fostered gave a new impetus to the self-governing ambitious of the Dominions. The atmosphere of the later conferences was scarcely that of 1887. but the whole story shows that the attitude of Great Britain has always been helpful and not hampering. Provision was made for the 1 expanding ideals of a Commonwealth of Nations. A Dominions section was added to the old Colonial Office. Direct communication between the Dominion Prime Ministers and the Prime Minister of England was facilitated. Private information on international affairs was made available for the Dominions from 1907 and 1911 onwards. Finally hist year there was established a distinct Dominions Office, with its own Parliamentary Under-Secretary. In the new order of things one eau hardly recognise the old Colonial Office system which existed when the first Empire Conference met in London. Sir George Fiddes remarks: “In a manner which no one could have foreseen the Conferences have not only followed a course of evolution as regards themselves but have changed the character of British ■institutions and have even altered the form of international relations. . . . In their political results the Conferences have transformed the status of 11,0 self-governing Colonies into that of Dominions which arc now recognised as ‘sister nations’ in the Empire.’’ The advance has been made without friction, by reason of the spirit, displayed by the statesmen who have met from time to time in London. Evolution, although it has moved in a direction and to an extent not anticipated in 1887 has carried us along on a straight path, and it has proceeded along certain undefined but understood limits. I Mho old spirit prevails, as we believe it does, there is no reason why that steady advance should not continue. A DEBTOR NATION An. eminent. New England lawyer, Frederick Peabody, laid before the United States Congress a few weeks ago a document which will become as historical as the Walter Page letters. It was a petition couched in impassioned language for the cancellation of the wer debts owed by Great Britain and her Allies. In this petition Air. Peabody urges with great force that the advances from the United States to the Allies were not made to be repaid but to provide more effectually for American security and defence. It was perfectly plain to the United States Government, he states, that if the Americans were not to be left to face Germany alone the Associated Powers must be maintained with all necessary supplies, “until wo could join them in the Held.’’ In his speech to Congress, asking for the declaration of war against Germany, the President definitely pledged “our lives and our fortunes, everything we are and everything wo have” to its prosecution. How was this pledge redeemed? About nineteen hundred million pounds was advanced “to enable our war-weary allies to prosecute the war alone against the enemies of (ho United States until we could, join them and thus save us either from having to fight Germany alone or from having to crawl on our knees at her feet.” Somebody in authority, says Mr. Peabody, took advantage of “our associates” to require of them a promise to repay “money advanced for our security and defense, money that, God knows, was so used”; which, in the opinion of the petitioner, was “a mean and un-American thing to do,” It is pointed out, moreover, that “the Allies did our fighting for live-sixths of the time wo were in the war,” thus saving tho Americans a sum estimated by an American army officer at fifty-five hundred millions of

pounds. This officer, according to Mr. Peabody, had made the following statement: •‘Since the enemy was on the run during flic greater part of our active participation in the fighting, it is fair to assume that our losses per month were, less than they would have been for the first live-sixths of the time and before the enemy was broken. To be conservative, however, lot us assume they would have been the sumo. Then our losses in men killed would have been .'IOO,OOO and in wounded 1,200,000, or expressed in money, £(i,ti()o.lH>o,ooo.." In reaching these figures the value of £IO,OOO is placed upon the life of each of the 50,00(1 American soldiers killed in the war. By this reasoning the conclusion is reached that the saving to the Americans after they declared war arid before they began to light was £"),500,000,000, a sum nearly three times the amount of the American credits to the Allies. Even when the charge made by the United States toi interest is added to the borrowed sum America would still owe £1,200,000,000 to its late associates. This extremely plain-spoken Xew Englander affirms in his petition that there is but one country in Europe in which there is cordial approval of America's treatment of her “late- friends." The heavier the burden, upon Britain and Franco the more profound will be the satisfaction of Germany. Germans all over the world would be filled with ,joy to see Britain overcome with debt and France sunk in hopeless bankruptcy. It is not the. least significant of the features and circumstances relating to this petition, remarks a Canadian writer, that while the Now York Times reproduced it, most of the other leading newspapers ignore it.