EMPIRE SOLIDARITY.

Wairarapa Age, 24 October 1925, Page 5

EMPIRE SOLIDARITY.

INFLUENCE OF LOCARNO PACT A STRIKING ARTICLE. (Press Association—Copyright.) (Received 8.10 p.m.) LONDON, Oct. 22.—Mr Richard Jegb, in a striking letter to the "Morning Post” dealing with the deliberate excluson of India and the Dominions from the Security Pact, says: "Hitherto, the choice before a Dominion Government or Parliament when Britain goes to war was a choice between passive or active belligerency.

A Dominion’s Choice. '"Under the sew pact, assuming a Dominion does not accept it, tho choice will be between belligerency of either degree, on the one hand, or neutrality. The latter, which is often popularly confused with passive belligerency, is a third party attitude.

"*Non-diserimination between belligerents would mean that the Dominions would be bound not to make a distinction between Britain and her enemy, ' treating both alike as regards facilities to carry on war. EMPIRE WILL DISSOLVE. IN EVENT OF WAR. "If this is a correct interpretation of clause 9 of the Paet, the new treaty provides for the dissolution of the Empire in the event of war. For the first time, the Dominions’ right to neutrality is recognised. Possibly the official nswer will bo that it really does not matter, because, by virtue of the League of Nations Covenant, the Dominions are bound to go to war simultaneously with Britain. "If so, the official view has changed remarkably, since Britain’s anxiety to maintain Empire diplomatic unity in relation to Canada’s proposal to appoint a Minister at Washington and since the Lausanne Treaty, from which the Dominions were most significantly not exphipted. A Warning Fulfilled.

Thus, Locarno seems speedily to have fulfilled the warning: ‘lf you start the League of Nations, you will destroy the Empire.’ Some of us would rather have preserved the Empire, even at the expense of restricting the scope of the , League.”— ("Argus.”)