AN AMAZING SUGGESTION.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1354, 3 February 1912, Page 4

AN AMAZING SUGGESTION.

Of all the suggestions that have conic of late from those people in England who insist on putting the interests of' Germany before those of their own country, the most preposterous was that of Professor CaldevcoTTj of King's College, London, who proposed that the western half of Australia should be handed over to Germany. We published a short cable message on the matter a month ago, and we now have before us the Spectator of December ;iO, containing Professor Caujecott's letter and the editorial rejoinder. Our readers probably did not take the Professor very seriously; they would naturally suppose that his idea would be regarded by everybody whoso opinion matters as a sheer impossibility. The Spectator, however, does not regard it as an isolated aberration, and points out that such utterances may gravely injure those international relations which their authors quite honestly desire to improve. We had better reproduce Professor G'aldecott's actual words: What is the situation as to the continent of Australia itself? Can we honestly say that our four and a half millions are really in elfccliva occupation now? Or, further, that the recent iiicrc-a.se of population is such as to be likely to keep Japan and China permanently o*ut of that vast area of laud in their own quarter of tho world? Would not a White Australia be more stable if the British pfoplo had the eastern half and the German people the western half of that continent? Our old settlements must be iVft intact, but aro the quarter of a million people in what we call "Western Australia'' equitably entitled to keep a great European nation from taking its place under the Southern Cross? Is the population only equal to that of Berkshire to claim permanent and sole occupancy of a million squaro miles? Wo should still have the choicest part, from Queensland to South Australia, including Tasmania, with -New Zealand in addition. As it stands, the unoccupied part of Australia is a very serious cause of instability when wc are viewing tho influence of Europe upon the world in a broad way. The Spectator, after describing Professor Oaldecott's letter as "a .proof of the extraordinary lengths ! to which well-meaning men will go in this muddle-headed attempt to put their country in the wrong," goes 011 to say: It is difficult to find words strong enough with which to repel this amazing suggestion. It is a policy which must infallibly destroy tho British Empire. Australia would fight to a man to provent a foreign Power from being admitted to the island continent. And sho would be right. With a homogeneous British people sho may possibly succeed in banishing war from her land. For tho Mother Country, in a wanton ecstasy of philanthropic sentimentality, to introduce a military race like tho Germans would bo to make a bloody struggle for supremacy in Australia a . . . Our imperative obligation to give the most absolute negative to the monstrous suggestion thnt we should part with a portion of Australia will, of .course, I*3 understood by the vast majority of British people all the world over.

No doubt it will bo so understood, if it is conceded that_ this truly "monstrous suggestion" should 'be taken seriously enough to be so gravely, negatived For ourselves, we are amazed not only at tho mere idea of Britain handing over a territory that has been part of the Empire for more than a hundred ana twenty years, but also at the proposer's cool ignoring of the wishes of Australia. Are we to take it that this is typical of the attitude of the Pro-German Britishers? Do they think that Australia, or New Zealand, or any other part of tho Empire, may be cut up and handed about like.insentient cake? Do they not know that Australia is a Bellgoverning Commonwealth? We can scarcely believe that many of them are so ignorant as that. We believe that if Australia could 'not have self-government within the Empire (which, of course, is unthinkable) she would, even with her present inadequate population, do what the thirteen American colonies did in tiie eighteenth century. New Zealand is actuated by the same spirit. We are all Imperialists because we see in the Empire the best guarantee not only of our defence, but also of our liberties and of our right to manage our own affairs. This fact, which is perfectly well understood by all responsible statesmen in every part of the Empire, was admirably expressed by Mr. Asqtjith, when he welcomed the oversea delegates to last year's Imperial Conference.

Whether in this United Kingdom (ho said) or in any of tho groat communitie.s which you represent, wo each of us are, and wo each of us intend to remain, master in our own household. This ie, hero at Home and throughout tho Dominions, tho life-blood of our polity. It ia tho "articulus stantis aut cadentis Imperii."

It is tmncMssary to labour this point, for it is one of those fundamentals which New Zealandcrs never think of questioning. Tho real evil that such ati impossible plea as that of Professor Cai.decott may do is to give colour to the cry that Britain is blocking the colonial expansion of Germany. That cry is being worked for all it is worth by those in Germany who talk of the "British peril" and seek to inflame public feeling against England. This is a real, and pcrhaps_the greatest, danger to peaco, and it is much to be regretted that it should be increased by people whose excellent intentions are spoilt by their foolish methods. Wo still think that the Spectator, in an article which we reviewed last week, mado out a good case for its contention that-if German expansion is prevented, it is the force of circumstances, and not the policy of Great Britain, that bars the wav Me. Asquitii, Sin Edward GitEyj and Loud Haldane on the one hand! and Mr. Bonar Law on the other have said that England does not want to keep Germany out of what has been called her "place in the sun," and we do not see any reason for doubting the good faith'of these assurances.