THE BRITISH EMPIRE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 246, 17 October 1936, Page 8

THE BRITISH EMPIRE

PROBLEM OF DEFENCE CO-OPERATION BETWEEN ; FORCES (By H. V. Hodson, Editor of The Round Table.) Article No. 6. Since times do not become less dan' gerous, it becomes increasingly important to look on the seamy side ol foreign affairs, our preparations against the possibility of war. De. fence is the servant of policy in al] the British countries, not its master. Two things follow from that. First, that if the Dominions are independent in their foreign policy, they are all the more independent in their defence arrangements. Second, that any all-Empire scheme for defence must be subordinate to Empire co-operation lor foreign policy. The Dominions are reluctant to be committed in a military way to their fellow-members of the Commonwealth because they fear that as a result they would be drawn automatically into quarrels and wars that were not their own. Their defence arrangements are entirely in their own charge, with one exception, the New Zealand Division of the Navy, which is paid for by New Zealand but') is part of the British Navy. That separateness, however, is very far from being the end of the story. In the first place, the different forces in the Commonwealth work very closely together. For instance, you will fin'd officers of the Dominion navies at the Naval Staff College at Greenwich, and British officers serving in Dominion navies. Soldiers and sailors and airmen in the Dominions are so trained and equipped that if the Dominions did come into a war with Great Britain it would be comparatively easy to link all the forces of the Empire together. The Committee of Imperial Defence, which sits in London, I sounds rather more of an all-Com-monwealth affairs than it is, because it is really a committee of the British Cabinet. But Dominion representatives are called to it from time to time, and two of the Dominions have appointed special -ecretaries to keep continuous contact with its work. All this co-operation in defence matters must not blind us to the inner fact that when it comes to an issue of peace or war the Dominions are quite determined to make up their own minds and take their own decisions. If they decided to be neutral when we or other members of lhe-4 Commonwealth were at war theres would be the gravest trouble. I am not talking about the paper trouble over the argument whether a Dominion could legally remain neutral without actually resigning from the Empire, or whether such a resignation would be tantamount to revolution. I am thinking of hard practical trouble in matters of defence and trade. One of our great naval bases, for instance, Simonstown, is in South Africa, and is maintained by the South African Government. We have other vital naval harbours in Ireland, secured for us by the Treaty that created the Irish Free State. A conflict among the British countries over war policy could be so dangerous that their most powerful effort has to be given to avoiding it. And that means keeping their policies in tune with each other in time of peace. Every discord is dangerous. It is a fortunate thing that all our policies echo the same keynote: peace among ourselves, no war save in self-defence or against a declared aggressor, and the maintenance of world peace through the collective system. (The foregoing article concludes the series by Mr. H. V. Hodson.)