The Daily News FRIDAY, JULY 24, 1931. IMPERIAL TIES.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 July 1931, Page 6

The Daily News FRIDAY, JULY 24, 1931. IMPERIAL TIES.

The fact that the New Zealand House of Representatives has been able to spend two clays on the discussion of the Dominion’s relations with the Mother Country and the Empire, and has not exhausted its ideas on the subject, is very encouraging. For a long time past Parliament has rather demonstrated a tendency to avoid such subjects, and on the few occasions when it has been necessary to come to a decision the task has been performed as quickly as possible. The difficulty has been, no doubt, that time has been pretty fully occupied with domestic affairs. This week, however, an exceptional opportunity has offered itself. The Government’s legislative programme is a modest one and cannot be advanced very far until the Budget is presented. There is time tg spare, and it has been well utilised in a very interesting debate on the Prime Minister’s verbal report of the proceedings of last year’s Imperial Conference. Mr. Forbes covered his subject quite sufficiently well to give members a good lead, and they have responded with alacrity. It may be that many of the speeches have been addressed almost exclusively to the ‘‘bread and butter” aspects of Empire relations, but that, after all, is not a serious fault, nor is it by any means surpriing to find members of Parliament concentrating their thoughts on economic rather than political questions. Next year, in all probability, New Zealand will have to send/ representatives to ilie Imperial Economic Conference fit Ottawa, and this week’s debate may give them ideas which they will then find useful. Meanwhile, of course, the immediate purpose of the Prime Minister’s survey of the Imperial Conference is to explain to Parliament the action of the Empire’s delegates in framing what is known as the Statute of Westminster, a proposed new law to clarify the constitution of the Empire. The conference deemed it necessary,to put into legal form the decisions of the 1926 conference with respect to the rights of the self-governing nations of the Empire as a means of safeguarding their -autonomy. It was agreed in 1926 that Great Britain and the Dominions must be held to be “equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations.” Practically ever since ' the war the whole Empire has been ordering its affairs in conformity with the principle thus expressed, so that the Statute of Westminster will not create a new situation, but will merely give formal recognition to the accepted practice. It’ will, however, supersede the Colonial Laws Validity Act of 1865, which provides that certain laws passed by the colonies can be made void if they are held to be repugnant to the law of England. The new statute is also to provide that no new Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom shall extend to a Dominion as part of the law in force in that 'Dominion unless the Dominion itself specially requests and consents to its enactment. In this way the legislative autonomy of the various units of the Empire should be completely safeguarded against encroachment. It is also provided that the Dominions may make laws having extra-territor-ial operation, and there has been some division of opinion as to how far such, power is desirable, but that is a matter with which New Zealand is not greatly concerned. This Dominion actually is less jealous of its new status than some of the others are, but what is regarded here as a matter of first-rate importance is the maintenance of the Imperial tic. New Zealand certainly would reject the Statute of Westminster if it were considered at all likely to weaken the Empire. .It is not suggested, however, that the recognition of the new rights of the Dominions can prejudice their attitude towards the Crown, which, “one and indivisible throughout, the Empire,” is the true boii&. of union. As a matter of fact the Statute of Westminster should strengthen the loyalty of the Dominions to the Crown, for it makes the new provision that any alteration in the law affecting “the succession to the Throne or the Royal Style and Titles shall hereafter’ require the assent as well of the Parliaments of all the Dominions as of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.” This extension of responsibility to the Dominions is a typically British conception. More than ever the Crown is made the sign and symbol of Imperial unity, and that unquestionably is the ideal for which New Zealand has always striven. Before the British Parliament can pass the Statute of Westminster each of the Dominions must give its consent in the form of a resolution passed by its Parliament. The New Zealand Parliament has given no indication of a desire to oppose this new Imperial legislation, and there should be no difficulty about this country’s consent to a step which plainly appears to be designed to consolidate tlie British Commonwealth of Nations.