EMPIRE AFFAIRS

Hokitika Guardian, 6 February 1925, Page 3

EMPIRE AFFAIRS

COMMON' FOREIGN POLICY WANTED. [“The Times” Service.! LONDON, February 5. The ‘'Times” is publishing a series of special articles dealing; with the prohloni of how to make the Empire selfgoverning nations agree upon and support a convinon foreign policy, whereon the writer urges is involved the Fmjiire’s existence. Tie says unless they ran agree it is only h question of time when they will separate into independent states. He claims the question is becoming more and more insistent, pointing out the failures of recent attempts to settle a common policy, indicating a deep seated difficulty which will become exceedingly dangerous, unless solved in the near future. The writer declares the actual danger of war is ever present, not only in Europe hut on the It ussiau-l ndiati frontier. Far East and Pacific Ocean, and sooner or later Germany will refuse to he submitted td military impotence. Russia is looking eastward to India, China and Japan, in the hope of organising the Orient against the West. If Japan or any other nation begins the naval armaments race, where will it end. Replying to those who point out how the whole Empire rallied to the Imperial standard during the crisis, the writer says the situation witlTiu the Empire has entirely changed since TSUI, and the British public have scarcely begun to understand this change. The new international status acquired by the Dominions after the war, made all the difference. The Lusanuc affair and 1024 reparations conference prove tlie Dominions will insist on their new status. They have, no special confidence in Downing! Street’s omniscience been use they cun sider the Foreign Office's outlook is insular and it fails to understand the overseas interests and viewpoint. The article then dwells upon the present inadequacy of inter-imperial consultation. Cable despatches are inadequate and constant personal contact is the very essence of successful diplomatic intercourse. Without it, deplomatic business would never get done, yet in the sphere of foreign policy, the personal element is almost entirely missing from the Imperial machine. Both Britain and the Dominions are lotting things slide again (and matters are even worse in two respects than many years ago, because Governor-Generals now net politically merely as the king does at Home, and High Commissioners devote their main attention to com mcree. Anyhow almost all inter-imperial business goes through the Colonial 01liee. The Dominions, more especially Canada and Africa, deliberately avoid contact with the international world because they believe the easiest way to avoid war is to avoid foreign entanglements. They fear their representatives would he no match for the British diplomatists; hut these world problems must he solved collectively. You cannot run a great co-operative concern in blinkers. Among practical suggestions the

•writer says:— (1) Inter-Tinperial consultation upon foreign affairs must lie done through tho Foreign Office. (2) Relations of the British Foreign Secretary with the "Dominions Premiers should he conducted by methods analogous to those employed in ordinary international diplomacy. An Imperial Secretariat like Air Bruce suggests, would either necessitate a staff of clerks or he a challenge to the Dominions indepedcnce. There was nothing the Dominion Premiers fear more than that the High* Commissioners should act as a sort of absentee Foreign Minister, speaking like plenipotentiaries. The British Foreign Minister should, therefore, treat the High Commissioners as he treats the Allied Ambassadors; namely, as personal intermediaries with the nominions Cabinets with the light of daily private interview; but, naturally on a more friendly and intimate footing. (,‘l) Governor-Generals and High Commissioners should he chosen for diplomatic qualifications and their functions remodelled. Britain should he diplomatically represented in every Dominion capital. (4) The Dominions should obtain access to direct information concerning the international situation and they must have a continuous and direct touch with the realities of the outside world and he able to get their own information or, at least, cheek it. This admittedly, is a difficult problem, but much could be done in either of two ways. The Dominions could make fuller use of Britain’s world wide diplomatic service or begin building up their owin staff of foremost experts by detailing them to British staffs in foreign capitals.