AUSTRALIA’S PROBLEMS

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 92, 9 July 1927, Page 13

AUSTRALIA’S PROBLEMS

ASIATIC QUESTION A PROFESSOR in AMERICA ca y:s. Trees Association.— Copyright W CHICAGO, Thursday. Professor Sir Harrison Moore’s last wcture delivered to-day, was entitled ■■The Foreign Policy o£ Australia.” Professor Moore came from Melwirne to deliver three special lec--,ires in the University of Chicago. 1 He indicated that during the war the notion of economic co-operation within the Empire grew in strength, 'ad was affirmed at the Imperial Conference in 1917. He reviewed the work of the Imperial Economic Conference of 1923, and the Imperial Economic Committee. He outlined the migration of British settlers to Australia, stressing that the absorptive mjwer of the country is limited by economic conditions, and said that Australia’s opposition to Asiatic immiiratton has been economic more than racial. He gave details of the Empire Settlement Act of 1922. Sir Harrison Moore, reverting to the tariff, said that serious economic investigation is somewhat late in the day in entering into tariff discussions, bat he intimated that both Britain and Australia were now seeking noncontroversial methods of trade cooperation. The lecturer then explained the principle of Dominion navies, and discussed the history of the Singapore base. He said that Hughes was the first British statesman during the war to call attention to the need of revision of the constitutional arrangement whereby the issues of peace or war were decided by Britain alone. He then discussed in detail the manner whereby the Dominions obtained a voice. The speaker then explained Australia’s interest in the Japanese demand for racial equality in the League covenant and Pacific Islands mandates, tracing the history of both questions, particularly the working of mandates. He then touched upon the question of the King’s representatives Commonwealth and State Governors, adding: “Thus in Australia the position of the King’s representative as the guardian of the law and Constitution has never been abdicated.” Sir Harrison Moore made reference to the League of Nations. He said it, as an ideal, commends itself to .Australian opinion without generating either a feeling of increased present security or any very real appreciation ot the obligations or responsibilities it imposes.

Separate membership of the League was not conceived to be an abandonment of the unity of the Empire. He stressed Earl Balfour’s words, that the Sovereign is the living symbol of unity of Empire. He pointed out that in international affairs the weight of Britain is still immeasurably greater than that of any Dominion or all of them put together, and said that most of the Dominions are contented to enjoy the advantage that Britain’s diplomatic machinery affords them. He concluded: “The concern of Australia is not the barren right to enter into separate relations with foreign Powers, but an assurance that the whole weight of British diplomacy is on her side whether the matter arises within or without the League of Nations.”