EMPIRE AND LEAGUE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 242, 13 October 1936, Page 6

EMPIRE AND LEAGUE

LEAGUE’S UNIFYING INFLUENCE THE CLASH OF INTERESTS BY H. V. HODSON EDITOR THE ROUND TABLE (Article No. 2.) It was in that mood, of washing A heir hands of Europe and emphasisI ing their independence of Great Brit* I ain, that the Dominions began their careers as countries with foreign pollI cies of their own. Fortunately, the I countries of the British Common- | wealth were all agreed upon the genj era! character of their policies. To I begin with, they were all members of i the League of Nations. The more I anxious a Dominion was to stand on its own in foreign affairs, the mote eagerly it supported the League of Nations, in which it counted unmistakably as the equal of other independent countries and had a platform for expressing its own views to the world; otherwise, its chief mouthpiece would still have had to be the British Government. On the other hand, tne existence of the League of Nations was extremely useful in keeping the different British countries together in their foreign policy: for when a crisis came along each of them had a right to its own policy, but because they were all members of the League the policy of every one of them was a League policy, and therefore they all had the same policy. Where Lies Danger? i But you can see from that very statement where the danger lay. Might not the seven British nations at Geneva say: "We have no need to worry about keeping our policies the same because they are all League policies,” and then all do entirely conflicting things in the name of the League, quite honestly, but according to different interpretations of their position under the Covenant? A League policy might mean many different things to different Dominions, just as it means different things to different people in this country. Tc give you an example, from the earliest days of the League of Nations Canada held the view that the obligation to go to war against an aggressor under the Covenant ought to be a regional one, not one binding on every member of the League however far away it might be from the place where the war broke out. So far as Canada was concerned, the substance pf this was, of course, that she would not be bound to go to war against an aggressor in a European conflict. Although the other Dominions did not all say so as strongly as Canada, they would have been equally disturbed if you had told them that under the League they were in honour bound to go to war to defend any country in the centre or east of Europe which might be attacked by one of its neighbours. Even when it came to the frontiers of Germany and France and Belgium, the Dominions refused to bind themselves to the promises that Great Britain herself had made under the Locarno Treaty. That treaty contained a special clause saying that no obligation was laid upon any of the self-governing Dominions or upon India. Differences of National Interests The long and short, of it was that membersnip of the League of Nations was not enough by itself to decide the details of the foreign policy of any of the members of the British Commonwealth. It was less like a set of tram rails, which the trolley of foreign policy was either on or off, than like a very broad roadway on which different vehicles could collide even I though they kept on the road and [ even though they were all going in | the same direction. Fortunately, during the time when the Dominions were growing into their new suit of clothing of independence in foreign policy, there was comparative calm in world affairs. On the whole, in spite of minor troubles and in spite of the failure to make any real progress with disarmament, the world seemed to be settling down, and I there was no urgent threat of another ! world war. But in 1931 the scene |began to change. Japan invaded I Manchuria. In Germany the Nazis I rose steadily towards power. The rumours of war began to thicken. Ir. this difficult period, it became increasingly important to allow for the differences in the outlook and interests of the various British countries as well as the sameness of their general aims. A Coloured Map Imagine that instead of all being coloured red on the map of the world, the various Dominions and Great Britain were coloured in different shades - blue and green and yellow and other colours that, the map-makers love. That may help you to think of the separateness of their different national interests. Canada, to begin with, is divided by two great oceans from the continents 'of Asia and Europe, where the obvious danger zones of war exist. She has only one neighbour, the United States, and her long, landward frontier is undefended, indeed incapable of defence. Her natural tendency is to try to keep on as good terms as possible with the United States, and to keep out ot commitments in any other I continent. But like the United States, I her attitude towards Asia is not quite l the same as her attitude towards Europe. She has always been a little anxious about the rising power of Japan. In the West of Canada there is quite a strong feeling against the menace ot cheap labour from the Far East. Her anxiety is due, however, not so much to any special reason, as to the fact that between herself and imeprialist Japan there is no buffer country, as there it, for instance, between herself and imperialist Germany. Therefore, a good many Canadians criticised the British Government for not taking a stronger line against Japan when she invaded Manchuria. But it is fair to take note that, if such a policy by the British Government had landed us in trouble with Japan, Canada had very few armed forces available to defend the interests of the Empire in the Far East or anywhere else. (The special problem confronting Australia and New Zealand is dealt with in article No. 3, which will appear in to-morrow's issue of the "Chronicle.")