CLOSER UNION OR-?

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 438, 10 February 1912, Page 7

CLOSER UNION OR-?

The following thoughtful article appears under the above heading from the pen of Mr S. W. Fitzherbert, of Wellington, in the Standard of Empire, a weekly journal published in London, which gives special prominence to events in the various Colonies and overseas Dominions of the Empire :

"The people of New Zealand received with amazement the interview with the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth reported by Mr W. T Stead in the Review of Reviews. It was almost impossible to believe that a man in Mr Fisher's position could not only so misrepresent the public opinion of his own country, but could have so little appreciation of the responsibilities of his office as to make statements utterly subversive of the principles on which the Epmire's existence depends. Indeed, few people did believe it. Since then we have Mr Fisher's contradiction of the truth of these reported statements, and his contradiction has been received with relief by his many admirers and all Imperialists. Oversea statesmen in the future should be wary, and give Mr Stead a wide berth.

"But some good may have been done unwittingly in thus placing in black and white an extreme expression of what may be termed the centrifugal view of the Empire. It has certainly called for a storm of protest, and so given an opportunity for plumbing the true sentiment of the Dominions on

the question. The centripetal view of the Empire was expressed in the suggestions for Imperial Federation brought forward by the Prime Minister of New Zealand at the Imperial Conference. Neither of these views can ba said to represent public opinion out here, although of the two Sir Joseph Ward's is in line with Imperial sentiment, whereas the ideas expressed in Mr Stead's interview can only represent a small number of English Radicals. "Thoughtful Imperialists in the Dominions, although keen on unity, see too many practical difficulties in all schemes of Imperial Federation yet proposed. They desire to make the defensive forces of the Empire impregnable to increase and extend its power and dominion, and to devleop and intensify the civilisation of the Anglo-Saxon peoples, and particularly those aspects of their civilisation that make for the greatest possible development of liberty side by side with the collective strength that comes from unity. And while they realise that federation makes for formal unity, they do not yet see how the liberty and development of the autonomous units and that peculiar form of Imperial enthusiasm that results from autonomy can be effectually safeguarded. These difficulties come under two heads. One represents the fear on the part of the Dominions that the people of the Mother Country do not appreciate the significance and meaning of ttie Asiatic exclusion laws of the Dominions. These laws are based on needs, parti} racial and party economic, of which the economic need is the paramount one, and they go right to the foundations of our national existence. Any attempt to interfere with them Would meet with the utmost resistance, and an Imperial Council that did so would probably break ud the Empire into its component parts. "If the people of the United Kingdom were sufficiently alive to the signfiicance of this question, were in full sympathy with the Dominion's views, and were not in part misled by r. mass of vague and misleading Bentiment about 'the brotherhood of man,' we might feel safe in entrusting the protection of this principle to an Imperial Council; but, in the absence of these qualifications on the part of many of our kinsmen, we naturally shrink from placing more power in their hands. Wo feel that, so far at any rate as this particular question is concerned, we stand under piesent conditions in a very much stronger position than we would be under Imperial Federation. But this of course, does not necessarily mean that we are in favour of the status quo.

"The second set of difficulties relates to our fiscal arrangements. The proposed Reciprocity Agreement between Canada and the United States arises this issue in its most extreme form. Canada claims and uses the right to enter into commercial treaties with other countries, and she is not likely under present circumstances to give up that right. Its importance to her is altogether too great for it to be relinquished, and although Australia and New Zealand have not as yet made any dramatic move asserting their claim to make similar treaties, the time must come when circumstances will force them to do so. This becomes more apparent when the conditions relating to the development of the Pacific are further considered. "The two dominant powers on the Pacific are the United States and Japan. Japan at present is the Em pire's ally, but her need for colonies in the Pacific must in the future affect her attitude towards us. The United States, on the other hand, are not only allied to 110 in blgod, but inherit similar traditions and the same literature, and, moreover, are engaged in upholding a policy towards Asiatic immigration similar to our own. These considerations alone tend to draw us together, but when it is also realised that we would probably benefit by preferential trade with the United States, it will be seen how circumstances are slowly drawing us into the American orbit.

"Any Imperial alliance, defensive union, or federation therefore must leave us free to maintain our Asiatic immigration laws and to make commercial treaties with other countries, unless, indeed, such alliance, union, or federation embraces all the English speaking races of the world. The United States of America at present drives a wedge into the Empire that threatens to split it asunder. King George lll.'a foolish policy affects even the twentieth century's dream of Empire building. It aeems as though

even a satisfactory union of the present British Empire cannot be arranged without the United States. Is it too much to hope that she may yet come in, and that the final form uf the Empire will be some confederation or alliance between the six Engilsh speaking nations, an alliance that will stand for all the best that Imperialism means to-day?"