The Dominion FRIDAY, MAY 4, 1917. AN EMPIRE OF FREEDOM

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3070, 4 May 1917, Page 4

The Dominion FRIDAY, MAY 4, 1917. AN EMPIRE OF FREEDOM

.' General Smuts enunciated what some of those who listened to him may have considered strange doctrine when he spoke on Imperialism at the Guildhall, the other day, in ; acknowledging the Freedom of the ! City of London. Even those. who are conscious'that the platitudes of Imperial platform talk have been done to death may have been a little startled by his blunt statement that it is not to help the Mother Country that the Dominions a,re making so fine an effort, in the war, but to help a cause which is as much theirs as' hers—the cause of freedom. That the larger cause has the stronger and bigger claim all who think will admit,' but it is going somewhat beyond the, facts to say that a desire, to. help thp MotherCounti'y has had no part in shaping the course, of the Dominions in this war. On this point, the. speech delivered by Genehal Smuts .can hardly bo regarded as representative of ruling sentime.nlj throughout, the overseas Dominions, though it no doubt reflects accurately, the do-rni-.nant public sentiment of South Africa. : As. a. whple, the. speech is nevertheless entitled to'be welcomed as a clear and forcible statemeirt ojf Imperial doctrine which 'unc^ the "essential principle,' upp;j w hi cn Imperial. iwity ; "is, and ahva be, established. Smuts \ s open to criticism only for havin !F°^ d , W f %»r in which ho and the Putch population of South Atnca aie not concerned—the senilisl™, of race as a binding and unit■ins force within the Empire. The people of those Dominions in which the British race, heavily predominates will not be inclined to accept repudiation of the sentimental tie with the Mother Country, which has, in fact, a very important bearing upon the shaping of Imperial policy, and may be expected to retain its force for many years to come, but no point of fundamental difference is, raised in anything that .General Smuts has said. Even those who are not prepared to unreservedly accept his view of interitaperial relations are bound to recognise that ho is dealing with a larger Empire and a larger future than would be possible if,the sentiment of race were the dominant factor in Imperial development. T.iie general tendency may have been ■to sot an exaggerated valuo upon this sentimental tie, and if General Smuts has gone to the other extreme his words will act as a wholesome corrective of the short-sighted and dangerous view that' whether or not a working political confederation of the Empire is achieved it will still hold together in some fashion unexplained. Facing the facts, it must be recognised that even in those Dominions where the sentiment of race exerts a. much more'potent influence than is possible in South Africa, it is a factor which must diminish in' importance as the years go by. General Smuts ignored or discounted some of the influences which had much to do with the past development of the Empire and have much to do with its unity to-day, , but there is no fault to be found with his exposition of the lines on which it is open to it to develop in future. Unquestionably it is upon the ability of the British people to extend to other races the freedom they themselves enjoy that the whole future of the Empire depends. The time will come when it will no longer be possible, as it is now, for a man to live in Canada or Australia oj; New Zealand and feel himself at teart an. Englishman, n Scotchman, or an Irishman, and it is in part upon the creation and development of' common interests, and above all upon the extension of institutions permitting the highest possib'o expression and enjoyment of political freedom, that each generation must concentrate if tlie Empire is to be perpetuated. No better augury' of tbe Empire's prospects of traversing this path into a distant future could be desired than is afforded in the example of tho race to which General banns belongs, and which he represents in 'London to-day. Less than twenty years ago the Boer people fought to tho last gasp in a war against tho British Empire. To-day one of their leading representatives stands forth, after directing a victorious campagn on behalf of tho British Empire, as an exponent and defender of British Imperialism. No higher tribute could be paid to tbe Empire in the stage it has reached than that this distinguished Boer should singlo out as the essential bond which unites its component nationalities and must do so in tho future their common devotion to the cause of human freedom.