The Wanganui Chronicle "Nulla Dies Sine Linea." FRIDAY, JULY 21, 1916. A NEW BRITISH EMPIRE.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXI, Issue 16690, 21 July 1916, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle "Nulla Dies Sine Linea." FRIDAY, JULY 21, 1916. A NEW BRITISH EMPIRE.

A new Empire is being born out of the travail of war, whose relations with the Mother Country will be sensib'y different when peace comes. In on 3 respect, indeed, the war itself has already made a fundamental change. Before August 1914 thousands of men left England every year for the Colo> nies. The great human stream was not merely stopped wnen the German* invaded Belgium, but began to flow back to England. In the last year and a half the Dominions have given the Motherland more men than they have ever taken from her in any similar period. When peace comes, these men will flow back —and others with them. Their settlement and re-settlement are already being discussed in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The significance of. inevitable happenings, according to Mr. A. Wyatt Tilly, lies in the fact that these men who will veturn to creative work after the desxructjve work of war^ will go bacfc different men. "They will want to feel assured," he says, "that we are not caught napping again. It may ")e a tine thing to protest that you never expected war, and, in fact, ignored every warning to get ready for war; but it is terribly expensive. It may be excellent policy for humanity (especially German humanity) to allow our industries to be undermined and our markets exploited; but that, too, is expensive." Against these two dangers only a reorganisation of the Empire can secure us, and Mr. Tilley. assumes that the Dominions will demand a real share .'in the military defence <tnd the industrial security and advancement of the Empire. Mr. Tillev cays:—•

As to the first, the share of the Dominions in the defence of the Empire. This must lead, directly and inevitably, to the Dominions having r say in questions of foreign policy, for ir, is an axiom of statecraft that policy depends on armaments. As for the industrial security of the Empire, thx> evidence we have seen of Germau methods of peaceful penetration has disturbed even the most orthodox of Free Traders, and it is clear that m all these matters the policy of the Empire must be radically changed. 1 read the other day, for instance, that a few years ago, when Australia wished to discourage the dumping of Germau goods and the cutting of British freights, she found she could do neither. The reason was this. A commercial treaty between Britain and Roumania stipulated for equal treatment in all British ports of British and Roumanian shipping; and the beneriu of this clause passed, by reason of other treaties and the "most favored nation" agreement, to Germany. After the war that kind of absurdity, whicn would nevier have existed at all had we had a real imperial industrial policy, will have to be abolished for ever. But; that is only the beginning. The whole question of developing the resources .1 the Empire, of ensuring that the control of its main industries rests in British hands and is used to further xJritish and not alien and possibly hostile interests, will have thoroughly to be gone into.

This, Mr. TiNey admits, is a lar^o programme, but he holds that it is not beyond achievement. The solution he suggests lies not in an overgrown Imperial Parliament —there are enough Parliaments already in the British Empire^ —but in the imperial Conterenoa, *nd the right, which the war has brought, for Dominion Prime Ministers t-o be entered in t£Fe Privy Council, and tnerefore to have the privilege <i attending on occasion the meetings of other Cabinets of the Empire. An

Imperial Conference every second year should be easily arranged, and mean., time there should be more co-opera-tion between the Dominion Governments and their Agents-General in Loadon and the Imperial Government. A secondary suggestion certainly deserving of consideration is that the High Commissioners should be members of the respective Cabinets which they represent in England. "Such a representative," Mr. Tilley argues, "would naturally have more authority on both sides of the water than any retired colonial politician, however distinguished, who wishes for a pleasantly dignified post to occupy his declining years. Moreover, a High Commissioner who was a member of the Dominion Cabinet which appointed him could visit his colleagues periodically to keep in touch with them, and yet carry on his duties efficiently in London, c couid remain in close touch with his own people, while speaking with authority as a member of his own Government m

London."