EMPIRE’S GOOD AT HEART

Taranaki Daily News, 9 July 1930, Page 11

EMPIRE’S GOOD AT HEART

COUNSELLOR WITH RULERS BATTLE-CRUISER PRESENTED. THE PROPOSAL FOR FEDERATION. The British Empire is a singular thing and, to the precise Latin races, rather an irritating problem. It should in .all conscience be a loose, shambling, shaky affair incapable of taking a strain. For it is not drawn up to formula, it has no binding rules and regulations, and it has no written Constitution. It is simply a family of nations who get on well enough in a rather casual way in times of peace but who, in times of stress, unite into one body with an alarming unanimity. It is united by the strongest tie of all, the tie of race. Sir Joseph Ward typified this race loyalty of his country. One of the strongest traits in his remarkable character was his love of Empire. He attended the Imperial Conferences of 1907 and 1911 as Premier of New Zealand. in tliose days, not so long after the Boer War and before the Empire had been tested by the late war and the Chanak incident, statesmen at Home and in the colonies were searching for means of binding the Empire closer together. Sir Joseph brought his keen, manipulative mind to bear on the problem. In the' conference of 1907, which Sir Joseph Ward, having succeeded Mr. Seddon, attended as New Zealand’s Prime Minister, he stressed the value of co-operation. That conference was particularly notable for. the presence of the Premier of the Union of South Africa, General Botha, who had led the Dutch forces against British soldiers a short time before. Two years after this conference the attention of the whole Empire was drawn to this Dominion by the gift of a first-class battle-cruiser, the New Zealand, to the King’s Navy. ,

GROUNDS FOR THE GIFT. By the Opposition the gift was held to he a breach of the closely guarded Constitution. Sir Joseph had presented the battleship with the consent of Cabinet but without the consent of Parliament. The Opposition quite rightly protested on purely constitutional grounds, that it should have been consulted. Against this Sir Joseph explained that the matter was too urgent to await the approval of the next session. The point was that even then there were signs of the gathering storm, and Sir Joseph’s alert mind had' already discerned the acute danger of the war which followed five years later. New Zealand was honoured with tho thanks of his Majesty the King and won a high prestige in the Empire. There were few people in the Dominion who did not share in the sense of pride at having had some association in this Imperial gesture. Two years later the ex-messenger boy again sat at the Imperial Conference table in London with the rulers of the Empire. It was at the notable conference of 1911, th© British Premier, Mr. Asquith, presiding. Another New Zealander, the Hon. W. Pember Reeves, sketched the Dominion’s representative in a few words for the readers of an English newspaper: “Sir Joseph Ward has inherited the leadership of a party which in its time has startled Australasia by its daring in experiment. Sir Joseph himself stands with the less Radical wing of his. party; but an analysis of his graduated land tax, his State money-lending to small farmers and cottagers, and hie administration of State railways- would make British Radicals groan with envy. Lately he has busied himself with efforts to develop a well-trained Territorial Force and has talked of .compulsory service, but lias not yet put it into force. A thick-set, bulky, good-looking Irishman, dark-haired and of the genial sort, Sir Joseph has almost as much energy as his predecessor, Mr. Seddon. A successful merchant, an excellent PostmasterGeneral and Minister of Railways, he has abilities of the practical kind.”