ANTI-EMPIRE SPEECH.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 26, 25 July 1911, Page 5

ANTI-EMPIRE SPEECH.

BY MR. ANDREW FISHER. By Cable-Press Association—Copyright. London, July 23. Mr. Stead publishes in the Review of Reviews an interview with Mr. Fisher, who said: "Don't talk of Empire. We are not an empire. No end of mischief has arisen from the use of that word. We are a very loose association of five nations, each independent, each willing for th(! 'time to remain in fraternal cooperative union with Britain and each other. We risk being attacked by England's foes, but we should gain nothing if we were as independent as any other sovereign State, and might lose much.

"We agree on this co-operation only on the condition that if at any time, or from any cause, we decide to terminate that connection, no one can say us nay. We are independent, selfgoverning communities, untrammelled by laws, treaties, and constitutions, and free to take our own course in our own interests without anyone preventing us. " There is no necessity to say that we will or will not take part in England's wars. We recognise that our territory is subject to attack by England's enemy. If threatened we should have to decide whether to defend ourselves or, if we thought the war unjust, and England's enemy right, whether we should haul down the Union Jack, hoist our own flag, and start on our own. We don't expect an attack or contemplate independence."

AN IMPOSSIBLE POSITION'. A TIMELY PROTEST. London, July 23. The Globe stairs that .is Mr. Fisher at banquets declared bis faith in the Empire and at the conference praised the notable advance made in calling the Premiers to the inner councils of the Committee of Defence, it is difficult to believe the very definite anti-Imperial views ascribed to him. Mr. Fisher's doctrine is that Britain should pay all the price of empire, and that Australia should have all the advantages until the hour of danger, when it would consider whether it would graciously continue to fly the Union Jack. If this is the settled opinion of the dominions, then the Mother Country will herself cut the painter, and that sooner rather than later. The Globe considers the Empire not worth having on such terms.