IMPERIAL ISSUES

Waikato Times, Volume 90, Issue 14026, 1 April 1919, Page 2

IMPERIAL ISSUES

BONDS OF COMMON SUFFERING

A STRENGTHENED BROTHERHOOD

INTO ONE GREAT FAMILY

INFLUENCE OF OVERSEAS STATESMEN

MUST BE RETAINED

(Australian and N.Z. Cable Assn.) LONDON, March 30.

Viscount Milner (Secretary of Stale for the Colonies), in an interview, said the Empire would never forgot what it had endured In common. Its sense of real brotherhood had been strengthened, and could never be destroyed. We were free and equal members of one community, and will give preference in all things to our own family. The principle of preference is much wider than tariffs. It affects emigration, shipping, cables, and finance. The Government and Colonial Office believed in strengthening our own Dominions, our own friends, and our own trade first. He added that in the War Cabinet the Dominion Premiers had made their influence felt. The mere chance of talking things over with them frankly had had an incalculable influence on our world and foreign policy. The War Cabinet ought to be continued m some other form. A Cabinet Committee should be created to deal specially with Imperial issues, and a foreign policy for the Empire, which should include Dominion representatives permanently residing here, and closely in touch with their own Dominions. When the Premiers were unable to be resident, they should be represented by prominent members of their own Governments. Thus the Dominions would be able to speak with authority. We would like to have the Premiers always with us. That was impossible, but the devouring of distance may yet bring us outlying statesmen swiftly fn moments of crisis.

Viscount Milner remarked incidentally that every nation in the Empire ought to settle its fiscal system on its own merits, and then give preference to others.