EMPIRE OBLIGATIONS.

Waikato Times, Volume 101, Issue 16946, 8 November 1926, Page 6

EMPIRE OBLIGATIONS.

His experiences at the Imperial Conference have evidently mellowed the views of General Hertzog, the Prime Minister of South Africa. When he went to London lie was regarded almost in the light of a disrupter; he had visions of independence, and other notions not quite in accord with the general ideas of Imperial unity. Ill's association with his brother Prime Ministers and the candid conversations of the Council Hall have apparently convinced him of the fact of Hie Empire; that a Dominion must either he in it or out of it—that it cannot reap the advantages without taking the risks, and the natural conclusion lo he derived from his speech, delivered at the Indian Union’s luncheon, is that he realises that he is safer inside the pale than out. That is much gained. In this connection there lias been some loose thinking concerning the Dominions’ altitude in relation to the Locarno Treaty, under which Britain accepts a definite obligation to go to war in certain eventualities. .In one of the articles, the British Dominions are specifically absolved from the obligations entailed by that Instrument, unless they voluntarily assume them. On the strength of this, it has been argued that the Dominions arc not directly concerned in the treaty. The Round Tabic accepts this argument to the extent that it expresses an emphatic opinion' that the practice whereby one part of the Empire assumes an obligation to go to war without flrst obtaining the consent of its partner Stales should not be repeated. “So vital a step,” it says, “should never he undertaken unless it has been made perfectly clear whether the other parts are willing to accept the consequence of formal, though not active, belligerency which its signature may involve.” That is a reasonable contention, and it constitutes a strong argument for the inception of some belter method of Imperial consultation. But that does not solve the Locarno question. That is an obligation which the Imperial Government has already undertaken, and the relation of the several Dominions to that obligation has, in view of the specific exemption, to be decided. A committee of the Imperial Conference is endeavouring to solve the problem by cunning phraseology, but the members are engaged on an impossible task. Words can never dissolve facts, and the fact is that if Britain is at war the whole Empire must be involved. That is the only possible viewpoint compatible with Imperial unity, and it must be accepted. It is a question of in the Empire or out of it. To remain in the Empire means to share its obligations in good report and ill. To refuse to do so means secession.