DOMINIONS AND EMPIRE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 3 December 1926, Page 4

DOMINIONS AND EMPIRE.

Consideiable importance attaches to Hie retoinn’ci.Mjatious of the Committee appoints! bv the Imperial Conference to report upon the status of the Dominions and - their relationship to the Empire in general and to the Home country in particular. The report of the committee was adopted by the plenary session of the conference, and »'( must, therefore, believe that it now stands- as the consideerd decision of that body. The consequences, if the decision be ratified and confirmed by the various Parliaments concerned, must be great. To every subject of the Empire, therefore, the report is of supreme interest, for it may very seriously affect his J personal rights and privileges as it must certainly affect those of the particular dominion of which lie is a citizen. Every self-governing dominion, wc are told, is now master of itself, subject to no compulsion whatever. They arc “autonomous communities of equal status, not Subordinate one to another, though united in allegiance to the Crown.” We do not quarrel with this definition, since it expresses at largo, as well as any other form of words could do, the true state of affairs. But when, practically applying this definition, the report proceeds* to explain the position in regard to treaties, we are unable to join in the optimism which declares that “though evei;y dominion is the sole judge to the extent of its cooperation, no common cause would be imperilled.” • It seems that it any one dominion should have the right to refuse to combine with the rest of the Empire in the event, s'ay, of Britain being forced into war with another Power, the common cause would thereby be very gravely imperilled. ’ And that dominion would be itself in an extremely anomalous position, both with regard to the other “aiitoiioiynus communities” and to their common enemy. Either that dominion is, or is not, a constituent of the Empire. If it is. how can the enemy of the other dominions regard it otherwise than as an enemy, too, and treat it accordingly? Are they likely to appreciate tlie nice distinctions which this report of the committee apparently' seeks to draw? And how could the rest of the Empire still deem such a recalcitrant member as one of the blood-brotherhood? The decision of the committee says that any Government of the Empire must obtain the assent of the other Governments before involving the latter in active obligations.