Mr Hughes and Dominion Interests.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16410, 2 January 1919, Page 6

Mr Hughes and Dominion Interests.

Mr W. M. Hughes is still proclaiming wherever he can the demands of Australia in the peace settlement. This time it is in the New York "Tribune" that he declares that Australia insists upon (1) control of the islands of -the Pacific, (2) freedom to make any laws and fix any tariff s he chooses, and (3) the payment bv Gormuny of Australia's war debt. He is, of course, doing no more than his duty in taking pains to guard Australia's interests, and so far as tho Pacific islands are concerned New Zoaland is at ono with Australia in requiring that those of them now n British occupation shall remain in British occupation henceforth. The question of indemnities is one, as we have said before, in regard to which the Dominions will be wise to wait for Britain's policy. As to the freedom of Australia (and New Zealand), to pass laws and Fix tariffs without referenco to anybody, nobody has seriously questioned it, and we think that no suggestion by Mr Hughes that that freedom has been even threatened should bo allowed to pass unchallenged. It will be remembered that on November 7th Mr Hughes made an onslaught on Mr Wilson's programme and upon the British Government's acceptance of it. In a long harangue he declared that the programme was virtually the peace settlement, that the Dominions had not been consulted about it, and that tho offect of it" was to destroy Australia's sovereign powers. He worked himself into such a strange passion over this that "The Times," which had been conspicuously friendly to him, folt bound to protest. It reprinted some sentencos from its leading article of the preceding day, to tho following effect (and we are glad to quote this as being m our view a correct statement of tho case, and on© that should reassure any anxious person who may still have failed to take Mr Hughes's measure): —

There need be no fear lest, in accepting President Wilson's theses en bloc, the Allied Governments have in fact anticipated the work of a subsequent Peace Conference. The suggestion, for instance, which is already raised in London, that the British Dominions have been committed unheard by the Mothor Country, will hardly bo supported by the democracies of the Dominions themselves. Thoy have no quarrel jv'ith President Wilson's main ideas. There is nothing jn the Allied Memorandum to affect in the slightest degree their full powers of self-govern-ment, their just claims to be made secure in tho territorial resettlement, or their promised right to a voice in its discussion.

"The Times" then proceeded, :n terms very like those wo ourselves used at the time, to remind Mr Hughes of tho facts relative to the visibility of the Wilson Programme to the War Cabinet last year. But Mr Hughes was not satisfied. TJje truth of the matter is, w« suspoct, tha,t Mr Hughes has a private grievance, and is ready to create discord and injure Imperial interests in order to relieve his feelings. According to a recent message from tho London correspondent of the Melbourn© "Ago," his attack on the British Government was regarded in London newspaper offices as being duo to personal pique and angry disappointment at his failure to induce Mr Lloyd Georgo to offer him a place in tho Cabinet. Wo should be sorry if any considerable section of New Zealand opinion wero misled by his outcries into imagining that tho British Government has any intention of ignoring or sacrificing Dominion interests.