The Grey River Argus TUESDAY, August 10, 1948 QUESTION OF WORLD DOMINION

Grey River Argus, 10 August 1948, Page 4

The Grey River Argus TUESDAY, August 10, 1948 QUESTION OF WORLD DOMINION

Hints of a compromise in the Moscow parley contrast sharply with the report of trenches and fortifications being constructed around Western Berlin by the Russians. At the same time there is the inference that Japan, whose ships are, again, beginning international sea transport, and whose trade is being resumed with British countries, is to be speedily rehabilitated so that she may be a barrier to the spread of Soviet totalitarianism in the Pacific. These things show the political reaction from the late war to be radically contrary of the reaction from the previous world' war. In 1918 it was all a case of self-determination for all nations. In 1948 it is all a case of the unification of nations to save themselves. No more significant commentary could there be upon the whole process since the latter part of the fifteenth century of dividing up civilised humanity into nationalistic groups. To-day, on the one hand, there is one polity which tends to submerge small nations in a totalitarian ocean, and, on the other hand, there is the appeal for all nations so threatened to combine in self defence. American initiative in this latter direction is countered by calls in Eastern Europe to down the Marshall Plan It thus looks as if two mighty antagonists, the United States and the Soviet, were destined to a mighty clash. It is obviously in the light of this prospect that the leader of the Australian Liberal Party, Mr R.G. Menzies, has just broadcast over the 8.8. C. an appeal for unification in policy by the whole British Commonwealth, so that that policy shall have greater weight and that all countries of which it consists shall have a greater say in shaping such policy. And it certainly is now being realised that to have too many of its people concentrated in one place, that is in Britain, remains a risk. Ships in plenty are to be soon made available to carry emigrants therefrom to other parts of the Commonwealth. Australia may have an annual influx approaching nearly a hundred thousand per annum in a couple of years’ time. There also will be an outgo to Canada, South Africa, and New Zealand. Hence the question is now whether the British Commonwealth will begin to close, or to separate, its ranks. What has however, gone, is Britains ability to regulate in Europe the balance of power. Mr Menzies can scarcely calculate that any closer relation with her Dominions would restore Britain to an equality with America and Russia as a world power. He doubtless reckons rather that it will add to her influence in strengthening Western Europe and such an addition of influence is certainly desirable. The recent notion of a world state has gone down the drain, but the outlook is grim unless: there can be averted either world domination by any single Power, or a struglle in which two would destroy each other and leave the rest of the world in a ruined condition. It is no longer possible to divert ambition for power and wealth to new territories, as had been possible until the present century. With the exception of the reductribution of population suggested for the British Commonwealth, people cannot migrate as they last century could to escape persecution. The whole world has become a sphere of rivalry or conflict, and materials for conflict arc not only greater in supply, but greater in destructiveness. The current opposition of realms and ideas is so far flung that there is less scope for neutrality than ever before. There is instead a lag between an actual transformation in’ world relations and the realisation of it by the people in. general. But people still feel they should stick to the bridge that has carried them so far. That feeling may lend force to the advocacy of consolidating the British Commonwealth in every possible way.