The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1912. THE DUTY OF NEW ZEALAND

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1554, 25 September 1912, Page 6

The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1912. THE DUTY OF NEW ZEALAND

The opening of the' Navy League Conference yesterday was made noteworthy by two speeches of unusual interest and importance. On .Monday night at the Town Hall his Excellency the Governor said that imperial perorations were almost a fault nowadays"—we have, ourselves laboured for a long time in protest against the reign of empty ' Imperial" eloquence in New Zealand— and he followed up this statement yesterday by saying something that really had a tangible meaning. The Minister for. Defence followed him with a speech which is the first, coming from the holder of that office, which came into touch with real facta. His Excellency must always speak in character, and for that reason importance of a special kind attaches to his analysis of the figures showing the disproportionate share of Imperial defence that is borne by Britain, and to his conclusion from them:- that "one cannot help reflecting with no immediate hopeful anticipations of mitigation or decrease in this proportion, how long the taxpayers of Great Britain will be able single-handed to pay so disproportionate a share of the bill for expenditure ori naval armaments to provide security for so many other people living outside her shores. . This re-echo of Mr. Winston Ciu'RCliill's now famous appeal to the Dominions to share the burden is good and very welcome: the facts at the back of it cannot he 100 often forced upon colonial attention. But thero. could not be a more startling r,mi sfquitiir than his Excellency's following advocacy of a Federal Empire. "I hope,'' he said, "that in the not very distant future the selfgoverning Dominions will assume full statutory partnership in the responsibilities and obligations as

veil as the privileges and advantages of Empire. 1 hope the time is very near for a modification of existing relations between the Mother Country and the Dominions, which would provide for the admission of the peoples of the overseas Dominions and possessions to a common citizenship of an Imperial character with an adequate measure of representation in an Imperial Council." We know that the idea of a Federal Empire is popular with some prominent men, but the arguments against it which worn so widely advanced in 1911 arc still valid. It must be noted, of course, that his Excellency's formula was so wide and general that it might possibly fit a development much less than, and not necessarily in the direction of, organic political federation. Of more immediate importance was the striking statement by Mn. James Allen. He was only ordinarily wise in prefacing his conception of this country's duty with a rnveat against building upon the theory that such and such a quarter of the Empire will certainly be the centre of Imperial gravity in the measurable future. Yet, while he recognises that for the present the centre of gravity is in that Northern Atlantic area which includes the North Sea and the Mediterranean, ho cannot "as a New Zealander" "take, his mind away from the responsibilities in the Pacific Ocean." Mn. Allen is, we hope, too sensible a man to do his thinking, as some foolish people do, with a bogey called "the Mikado" "perched upon his Chamber door"; and we should be surprised if he was trembling at a "yellow peril" when he brought his argument up to the point that "the one great stimulus to the people of tho Southern Pacific would come in the necessity of having to faco direct hostility to themselves." They are pitifully ignorant of the conditions in Japan and China—the two most sorely worried nations ,in the world—who fancy that the "yellow peril" is the present danger. The danger is elsewhere. The Minister for Defence came into close touch with the facts that interest us when he complained of the naval dispositions forced upon the Home Government by the New Zealand representative at the Imperial Defence Conference, and sounded the note of New Zealand's duty to supply, and not hire, its share of the Empire's defence. "No self-respecting. New Zealander," he said, "could put up for any length of time with the position they would find existing in the course of a few months in New Zealand waters. That the Mother, Country should send her battle-cruisers and cruiser's and submarines here and pay for them was more than any scli-rcspecting New Zealander couid permit." To have said this tnree or five years ago, in that hayday of Imperialism when was born i.'iut lamentable myth of "New Zealand's noble example" would have been ttn 'say what was not true. There *•&« nobody, anyway, amongst the rhetoricians of that day, to say it. Today we most firmly believe, as we earnestly hope, that in this year 1912 Mr. Allen is right. He made two practical suggestions; the equipment of a' naval station, and some measure of co-operation with Australia.

The Minister emphasised the point that needs emphasis, namely, that New Zealand must be made somehow to feel tho reality of its obligations. In the great machine of Empire, New Zealand cannot, within any measurable time, be more than a small cog. Yet it can do a useful part even as an obscure coc in the machine—a useful part fcr ihe Empire. And to save its o«vn sml it should do it. The simpie fact, which it is the duty of our national leaders to keep in mind, and to drive home in the minds of our people, is this: that it is, if not necessary to the salvation of the Empire, yet certainly necessary to the moral and national salvation of New Zealand, that New Zealand should make its part in Imperial defence, on land and sea, as real and serious a thing for itself as its.building of roads and bridges and its passing of local laws. It may matter little to the Empire.whether we set ourselves to building or providing, naval bases, or financing local 'flotillas, or furnishing men—but it will mean much to ourselves if we, do seriously and honestly make sonic real and sensible sacrifice for any one of these ends.