The Press Thursday, January 6, 1927. The Empire.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18892, 6 January 1927, Page 6

The Press Thursday, January 6, 1927. The Empire.

We print a cable message to-day from London summarising a tribute by The Times to Mr Coatee and another from Ottawa reporting a record gathering ot" a Canadian Club to hear a speech by Mr Bruce. The Times makes the arresting statement that the "British public accepted the Balfour " Report [on Inter-Imperial Relations] " largely on the strength of Mr Coates's "and Mr Brace's signatures," while Mr Bruce devoted a good deal of hi? speech to convincing Canadians that he signed only because nothing was done that ''might eventually lead to dis- " integration." Thi.s week also Now Zealand has the Report itself— The Time- published the full text on November 22nd—and is able for tho first time to check its earlier comments and impression?. It has been generally understood that the Report was not so much a new statement of Imperial relations as a clearer statement. The view we took ourselves, on the strength of the cabled summaries, was that the Committee had not "forged "'some new mechanism which would " make the Empire work to the satis- •' faction of the Kmpire-menders or

" Empirc-enders,'' 'nit sim;>ly made the facts of the Empire so clear that no one " could any more misunderstand ,f them oi* find it worrying and anomalous that there should he a group " of nations which are all entirely independent and which are yet one "great State.*' This, wo are now pleased to find, is the view expressed by The Times after a thorough examination of the full test. After pointing out that there is probably no parallel to a Report which deals with so many great problems in such definite and careful language, The Tivies warns its readers that it would be a profound mistake to hail the Report ns " a new departure " or a " far- " reaching constitutional experiment," and insists that it is "essentially a rcgis- " tor of conditions as they exist already, "rather than a programme for the "future." It says of the preamble that its phrases, though useful for quotation to suspicious nationalists, are " only saved by their italics from being "almost incidental"; of the "trifling "chango in the Royal Title, by no " means the first," that it has no practical significance but "recognises the " essential difference of the position of " Southern Ireland from that of the "grouped Dominions 'beyond the '"fleas'"; of the clause dealing with tho position of Governors-General that tho practice of direct communication between Prime Ministers is not a new one, and that "it matters very little, " except in theory, whether the King's " representative is supplied with copies "of the correspondence 'for transmission' or 'for information'"; and of the sections dealing with the Privy Council, that they remove "well-known "anomalies and anachronisms," but "show no disposition to abandon the " Judicial Committee as the final Court "of Appeal for appropriate cases " (a judiciously wide word). There remains, of course, the bewildering problem of foreign diplomacy:

Are we a single unit for purposes of diplomacy? Or half a dozen separate units? What is our position in tho negotiation and conclusion of treaties! In what guiso do we take part in international conferences I How far can one nation commit Its partners to the obligations which It has undertaken for itself 1

The Report faces all those questions, and brings to them The Times says, " all that laborious thinking and skil- " ful drafting can achieve" in providing answers. But thero is nothing unforeseen in any of its answers. The practical result, it is very wisely said, will be no more and no less than " we " all please to make it." The working of this unprecedented system still depends, and in the last resort always must depend, upon a "sincere deter"mination to make it work," and one of the first proofs of our determination to be an Empire in fact as well ag in name will have to be an acceptance of the Empire's burdens. MiBruce went a little far, aa a visitor and honoured guest, in reminding Canadians that they carry only about onethird of the load, voluntarily assumed by Australians, to keep the Empire secure against attack. He may, however, have argued that manners do not matter so long as the result is achieved, and that it was a case for bold indiscretion. It would be pleasant to think that the tolerance of his audience was not wholly unconnected with a national change of heart on the subject of defence.