DOMINIONS' PROBLEMS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4755, 24 September 1924, Page 3

DOMINIONS' PROBLEMS.

/ WHAT OF THE FUTURE ? IN OR OUT OF THE EMPIRE. Mr H. Wilson Harris discusses in the.. London “Daily News’’ the important problem of the future of the Dominions, who, while forming part of the Empire, yet insijst on going their own independent way as separate “nations.” “The holiday months are no time for a searching investigation into any problem so complex and abstruse as the relationships of the British Empire,” says Mr Harris. “It is just as well, all the same, that Mr J. H. Thomas is calling a conference on the subject in the autumn, for one thing is certain, that things cannot remain where they are. Where they are, indeed, no on© quite knows, and where they soon will, be if mere drift con--tinues is a problem still more obscure. ' "Consider for a moment some three or four incidents of the past month or two. Qr, rather, go back first a little farther to Canada’s demand for her own diplomatic representation at Washington. That was a funda- , mentally new departure that a decade or two ago would have been inconceivable. But in principle it is an accomplished fact .to-day, though for one reason and another the flnst appointment to the post has yet to be made. CANADA’S REVOLT. "Bu>. come down to more recent events. It is only a month or so since the Government issued a White Paper embodying at times almost acrimonious correspondence; between Ottawa and Whitehall over the ratification of the Treaty of Lausanne. Canada was not invited to send a separate representative to make peace / with the Turks as she was when the peace with Germany was being negotiated. The grievance was treasured, up, and when it came to signing and ratifying, Canada said it was no business of heis. That caused some stir both „,at Whitehall and Westminister, and j? efforts to smooth the matter over became feverish. Exactly how they ended is still something of a mystery, for Ministers were so lavish of soothing assurances in th© House of Commons that no one was quite sure that rockbottom was ever reached, .“At all events, matters were so arranged that so far as Canada was concerned the ratification of the Treaty could go forward. But then there was the Irish Free State to reckon with. Its assent, too, had to be obtained. and for weeks the Prim© Minister had to keep explaining periodically that he could not move because of Dublin. “Dublin, it may be observed, had meanwhile taken the earliest opportunity of doing in practice what Canada had done only in theory, and has already appointed its own Minister at Washington. Dublin further announced, on the eve of the present Allied conversations in London, that they • did not; concern her and she wag nbt committed by their conclusions. pit “Canada took the opposite line. Once more, as at Lausanne, she found herself excluded, though she had actually appointed and accredited a delegate, Senator Belcourt. The Senator, having been shut out one day, was lei in the next after hasty discussions which® resulted in the establishment of a rota of Dominion representatives, one of whom sits each time as full delegate while the ethers are admitted to look on. That arrangement is accepted for the moment, but no one can regard it as anything but a make-shift. LORD BALFOUR’S STATEMENT. “Finally, aS'a most essential fact - in the case, come the arguments adduced by the Government, and still more emphatically by Lord Balfour in the House of Lords, about the Dominions in relation to the Treaty’ of Mutual Assistance. We can leave the rights and wrongs of the treaty on one side in this connection. What matters is the constitutional reasoning based on it. The treaty, in its present tentative form, operates by contingents; No country, that is to say, is called on to take military measures in a continent other than its ffown. That, says Lord Balfour, cuts clean across the fabric of the British Empire, which estends to every continent, and can acknowledge no such limitation. On that it may be observed that the limitation is not compulsory. If Canada, for example, chose to assist Great Britain in defending some European State against attack, there would be nothing to prevent her. “But Lord Balfour’s main argument is not that. He contends that Britain cannot bind herself to intervene in a European quarrel, because that would, morally at any rate, involve the Dominions, who do not desire to > be involved. “That is really the crux of the whole problem. How far are the Dominions, recognised as separate selfgoverning entities, holding their own seats in the League of Nations, and at liberty to vote against Great Britain or against' one another there, necessarily involved in the international action of Great Britain or of one another ? ■ “In 1919 they were not considered to be so bound. When the triple pact between Britain, France, and America was signed (not ratified) a special proviso was inserted to the effect that the Dominions were not bound by Great Britain’s" signature. But the moral obligation may be said to remain.”