THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, MARCH 11, 1922. CUTTING THE PAINTER.

Wairarapa Age, 11 March 1922, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, MARCH 11, 1922. CUTTING THE PAINTER.

The Premier of South Australia has been telling an audience in London that there are some Australians who I cl vt<> that the time has come to hut the painter and east adrift from the Mother Country. Perhaps there are There may also be some in New Ze; land who hold the same opinion. There arc undoubtedly some in Ireland wro do, and there are probably some mil lions in Egypt and in India. But ks it really possible as a practical exper ment to cut the painter? Suppose that Australia, or Ireland or New Zealand decided to become a republic. Wc have it on the excellent authority of Lord Milner that if any dominion decides to stand out of the Empire not a single British soldier would be us: I to prevent it. Another authority has declared that the chief change that would be necessary in seceding from the Empire would be a change of notepaper. The seceding State would no longer write on paper with the words ‘O.H.M.S.” or the crown on it. But it would use the same Typewriters and the same typists; it would probably use the same stamps until they were exhausted; and it would undoubtedly carry out all its existing contracts and liabilities and commitments. The fact is the seceders would be outside the Empire only in name. They could not by a stroke of the pen cancel all their lifelong associations, and they could not get away from their trade connee tions and the relations of buyer and seller upon which their very existence depended. The independence of Ireland, or Egypt, or Australia may look simple enough on paper. As an economic fact it is almost impossible. Trade only exists because it is mutually beneficial to the two parties. They have built up mutual responsibilities that cannot be ended without a wholesale confiscation. Such confiscation would ruin the credit of the confiscat ing country and make it impossible to get along in a state of independence, for no other country would enter into relations with it. These economic difficulties are the real ones that would confront each and every country that-dr ; sired, from nationalistic motives. '

cancel its political relations with another Political bonds can be cun celled, but it is quite another thing to sever the economic relations upon which those bonds uusually subsist.