Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1926. WORDS AND FACTS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 96, 20 October 1926, Page 8

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1926. WORDS AND FACTS

lOn the eve of the Imperial Conference the omens have been a good deal more favourable than at any j previous time since its agenda first came under public discussion. In I Paris, where a week qr two ago I the Conference was confidently expected to show that "the British Colossus was tottering to its fall, ' it is said to be still taken for granted that the Irish Free State is "definitely separatist," that General Hertzog "means to embarrass the | Imperial Government," that Mr. Mackenzie King is a "dangerous Kadieal," and that Australia and j New Zealand, influenced rather by | fear of Japan than by love of Britain, will alone elect to remain in the Empire. But from this gloomy consensus of opinion, which it is distressing to know is inspired by hope rather than fear, there are weighty dissentients. The testimony with which the "Liberte" rebukes these maligrants is not without its application to our own croakers. |It is foolish, says the "Liberte," to rejoice over the creakings of the structure of the British Empire, which is still one of the greatest conservative ' forces of the world. If it broke up, the way would be free for Bolshevism in Asia. If the British Navy were condemned to impotence, piracy on the high seas would quickly reappear. When the General Strike was m progress, the French Press was able to see that Britain was fighting the battle of the whole world in a manner that no other Power could have rivalled, but with the peril the gratitude has also passed. And even outside of Paris how many of us have enough historical imagination to realise that the freedom of the high seas from piracy is one of the blessings that the Empire and the world owe to the British Navy? While agreeing with the "Liberte" in rebuking the French Cassandras, the "Temps" advocates "a middle course between the exaggerations of malevolent foreign onlookers and the gaping optimism of London patriots." No doubt the second of these extremes is the one against which the nations of the British Empire stand in the greatest need of guarding. Hope is always a more comfortable counsellor than fear, and it is usually a wiser one, but it would be absurd Ito exchange the pessimism that was prevalent a few weeks ago for an equally extravagant optimism on the only evidence that has since I become available. For months there had been talk, which professjed to be inspired, about the bombshells which were to shatter the Imperial Conference, if not the Empire itself. Bouquets have now taken the place of the bombs, and perhaps with as little reason. The less gloomy atmosphere is something to be thankful for, but it will be a doubtful advantage if it induces the belief that all is so well that there is nothing left to worry about. Bouquets are frail and perishable things, even if, as in th*> present case, the .flowers of which they are made are flowers of speech If they have induced a genuine spirit of hope and ' good will they have rendered a great service, but a spirit of candour is just as necessary as before. The essential facts are exactly as they were a year ago and as they were last month, and they have to be faced unless the drift towards disintegration is to be accelerated instead of being arrested. The 16th October, 1925, was a critical, date .in the history of tho British Empire, because on that day a Treaty was concluded in which its disunion had for the first time been officially proclaimed to the world. Because it safeguarded the peace of Europe, and therefore the peace of the world, against one of its capital perils, the Treaty of Locarno was of intimate concern to every part of the Empire. Yet the lesson of 1914 had been so poorly learned that our Foreign Minister had to negotiate it %vithout the cooperation of the Dominions, and had also on that account to include in it a provision which excluded them from its obligations unless they signified their acceptance. By the lesson of 1914 we mean that, though the Dominions made Britain's war with Germany their own war without a dissentient voice and without hesitation, it was recognised all round that the Empire must not again be subjected to such an ordeal

before all of its self-governing parts had been consulted. But seven years after Germany had laid down her arms the Conference which was held at Locarno to restore her to equality and friendship with her conquerors found the machinery of Imperial consultation so utterly inadequate that Britain had to shoulder the responsibility, alone and to stipulate expressly for the exemption of the Dominions. This exemption gave notice to the world that Britain might have to face the next Great War alone and in so doing to destroy her Empire. It might have been hoped that the Dominions, to whose reluctance alone their failure to take an effective share in the Locarno negotiations was due, would have been quick to resent the suggestion of deserting Britain as an insult and not a privilege. But New Zealand alone has taken that view, and it is impossible to refrain from regretting that she had not earned it to the point of formal ratification before the present Conference met. If 1914 revealed the effective unity of the Empire and 1925 its perilous lack of cohesion, what is 1926 going to do 1 The bulk of the talk has b-ien depressing in the cxi treme. Three of the Dominions, if they may be fairly judged by their official spokesmen, are not satisfied with the virtual independence which they already enjoy, but want to enlarge it into the formal independence of sovereign States, enjoying a position of absolute equality with Britain. It has been freely stated that nothing short of a declaration of this kind would satisfy them, and that they would seek such a declaration from the Imperial Conference. If they get from the Conference all that words can give, what will it profit them? 'A declaration of equality which would put Canada and South Africa in a position of actual equality with Britain, and induce them, for instance, to provide an equal Navy, would be a magnificent thing for the Empire, but it is, of course, rights and privileges and not duties or responsibilities that these people are after. From the standpoint of real business more importance may reasonably be attached to the soberer version of Irish aspirations which is cabled today than to the honeyed accents of Mr. Mackenzie King and General Hertzog. It is to be hoped that the Imperial Conference will work off its eloquence in the glittering generalities "appropriate to the first day, and then get right down to facts.