The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, JULY 26, 1911. NOT AN EMPIRE?

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 27, 26 July 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, JULY 26, 1911. NOT AN EMPIRE?

That interesting personage, Mr. Andrew Fisher, Privy Councillor, Commonwealth Prime Minister, is a difficult person to understand, and one is rather surprised, having read the precis of some recent remarks of his in relation to the Empire (which, he says, does not cxict), why he attended the Imperial Conference, or, better, the Empire Conference. Mr. Fisher asked Mr. Stead, the famous journalist, not to talk Empire. Said he: — We. are not an Empire, but a loose association of five nations each dependent, etc.

The independece of the dominions in vital matters does not exist. We owe everything we have to the Mother Country, which among other things, gave to Australia her Prime Minister. The Mother Country founded the prosperity of Canada, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand, and it is now and always has been, the pawnbroker for the whole of them, as well as for various other countries which do not fly the Union Jack. Mr. Fisher's attitude in regard to "Empire" is ex- > eeedingly peculiar. "If threatened," he said, "we should have to decide whether to defend ourselves, or if we thought that the war was unjust and England's enemy right whether we. should haul down the Union Jack, hoist our own flag, and start on our own." That is to say, if England is engaged in war and the Federal Labor Caucus of Australia decided it was unjust. Australia would become a republic, enormously indebted to Britain, and having in her own waters a navy which is part and parcel of the Imperial Navy, partially manned by Britishers, built in British yards, created by British brains, and bought with money loaned by the universal "uncle," who the other day made Mr. Andrew Fisher one of his Privy Councillors. Mr. Fisher's idea as emphasised by his pathetic query, "What should we gain?" in certain circumstances of war, is based on the utter selfishness which impels men of his class to kick the ladder away by which they havo climbed. He says: "We don't expect an attack or contemplate independence," having inferred very strongly that "wc" did contemplate independence, for he had said that "our territory is liable to attack by England's enemy." If we are independent, self-governing communities, "untrammelled by laws, treaties and constitutions," there is—(l) no need for us to borrow from John Bull; (2) no need for us to depend on him to protect us; (3) no need for Imperial Conferences; (4) no need for Mr. Andrew Fisher' to receive an Imperial distinction. If we "are free to take our own course in our own interests without anyone preventing us," there is no need for us to take appeals to the Law Lords, and it seems to have been very absurd to get Lord Kitchener to lay down an army for Australia and New Zealand, and for Central French to perform a like service for Canada. In short, it is the business and pleasure of Britain to be money-lender, instructor, the supplier of ideas and men (the most important export she makes) to police the seas, to keep up powerful and effective machinery, to carefully watch and help colonial affairs, to keep her doors wide open (and free) to everything the dominions may send her and to welcome with the utmost cordiality and kindness every colonial representative, no matter how small his calibre, to its counsels. It is the business of the dominions if they take the advice of an ungrateful person who by sheer accident is now Commonwealth Prime Minister to object to the

idea of Empire, Iml. to use; tin; cradle of it in every possible way, to use its men and its minds, its money, its incomparable influence, its navy, ite hos- j pitality, its honors; to erect barriers against its goods, to object to small influxes of skilled men from Britain, and to grandiloquently tell the earth that "wc are independent, self-governing communities, untrammelled, etc." We are trammelled, shackled, bound, tied, held fast and otherwise adhere to the Old Land by a stronger leash than even our piles of 1.0.U.'5. Australia Sias talked for many years of "cutting the painter" in infantile contempt for the loins from which its people sprung. With the flaccid confidence of the very young it really believes that "poor old father is getting dotty," and only quite recently a man who ought to know better has sought to create ill-feeling in 'the Australian Navy by saying how verymuch superior the Australian sailor is jto the product of a navy that has been plugging along as a pattern for all navies for some centuries. "We will," one thinks one hears Mr. Fisher say, "hang on to the apron strings of the Mother Country while she is keeping the peace of the world for us with her money, her men, her brains, her incomparable finesse and diplomacy. But as soon as Mother is in trouble we will pull out and hoist our own bunting." The uncomplaining Mother, however, lets every upstart rant away, and goes on with her work. She perhaps did not worship Andrew Fisher quite so devotedly ns the Labor Caucus worships him, and he is retaliating by a dark threat to "cut the painter.'' Allowing for the blueness of the London Globe, which mentions that Britain herself might cut the painter under the circumstances of which Mr. Fisher spoke, one sens the justice of that paper's contention when it shows that if Australia uses the Old Country and 1 all that it means and throws it over in time of stress, that the Empire is not worth having. The sober-minded person knows that Britain would get along quite comfortably if she owned neither Australia nor New Zealand—but both dominions want Britain more than they want anything else, despite the screams of Andrew Fisher, who utters opinions that a really eminent statesman would not dare to give voice to.