NOT AN EMPIRE.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1188, 25 July 1911, Page 5

NOT AN EMPIRE.

A PRIME MINISTER'S YIEWS. MERE TEMPORARY UNION. MR. FISHER TALKS TO MR, STEAD. I)r TelcEraph—Press Association-CoDyrialit London, July 23. Mr. W. T. Stead publishes in the "Review of Reviews" an interview with Mr. Fisher, Prime Minister of Australia. In tho course of the interview, Mr. Fisher is reported to have said:—"Don't talk of Empire. Wo are not an Empire. Xr> end of mischief has arisen from the use of that word. We are a very loose association of live nations, each independent of each. Wo are willing for v a timo to remain in a fraternal 00-opcrativo union with Britain and each other, but only on condition that if at any time or for any cause we decide to terminate that connection, no one can say.

"We are independent self-governing communities," proceeded Mr. Fisher, "untrammelled by laws, treaties, and constitutions, free to take our own course iu our oivn interests without anyone proventing us. There is no necessity to sny that wo will or will not take part in England's wars. We recognise that our territory is subject to attack from an enemy of England, and if threatened wo should have to decide, whether we should defend ourselves, or, if wo thought tho war unjust and England's enemy right, we should haul down the Union Jack, hoist our own flag, and si art on our own. We don't, expect an attack or contemplate independence, because we expect a riddance of tho risk of being attacked by England's foes. • We should gain nothing if we were as independent as any other sovereign State, and might lose much." NEW IMPERIAL DOCTRINE. .BRITAIN TO BEAR ALL BURDENS. London, July 23. The "Globe" states that Mr. Fisher at various banquets declared his faith in the Empire, and at the Imperial Conference praised the notable advance made iu calling the Premiers to tho inner councils of the Committee* of Defence. It is' difficult to believe the very definite anti-Imperial views ascribed to him. Mr. Fisher's doctrine is that Britain should pay all the price of Empire, and Australia should have all the advantage until the hour of danger, when she would consider whether she would graciously continue to fly the Union Jack.

"If this is the settled opinion of the Dominions," says the "Globe," "the Mother Country will herself cut the painter, and that sooner rather than later. Tho Empire will not bo worth having on such terms." FUTURE OF THE EMPIRE. SPEECH BY SIR JOSEPH WARD. Sir Joseph Ward, speaking at a meeting in London on June 13. called by the Royal Colonial Institute, said that if the Empire was to have no closer unity than a quadrennial meeting of Prime Ministers round a table in Ixmdon, then, to his mind, the outlook for Imperial unity was grave and clouded. Two courses presented themselves at this juncture. First, Great Britain might acquiesce in the continuance of the present system, and permit in time the great self-governing Dominion? to enter upon foreign policies of their own and into alliances—commercial, or even perhaps defensive—of their own with other nations, permit them to develop on their own lines a naval policy, and ultimately to declare whether they would remain at peace while she was at war. Inevitably the colonies would have to declare for peace by the assertion of independence, for under no other means could sucli a state of things be consummated. The only other course was that of Imperial co-operation. (Applause.) At present millions of white British subjects beyond the seas had no voice whatever in the maintenance, production, or control of the navy, no voice whatever in the all-imnortnnt question of peace or war. While these people overseas were disfranchised in this way we never could and never would have a true Imperial system.

The Earl of Selborne, in opening the discussion, said he would remind Sir Joseph Ward, as regarded the American colonics, that at that time this country was a comparatively small and poor country, liaviDg just borne the whole brunt and expense of a war with France, which added Canada to tho Empire, and, although the statesmen of those daTS were ill-advised and clumsy in their dealings with tho colonies to the last degree, yet their case was that tho American colonies ought to bear some share of the burden of defence which had been cast upon them by tho war. But they did it entirely in the wrong way,' by trying to impose taxes on free men of our own race without their consent. As regarded tho future, Lord Selborne said wo in this country mnst be prepared to see the centre of gravity of the Empire pass from the United Kingdom to some other parti of the Empire. While we on this side of the water did not feel so free to speak on the subject as Sir Joseph Ward, yet when tho statesmen of tho Dominions came forward "with a prepared scheme they would find many in this country who would give iro their political lives to support them. (Applause.)