The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 26. HOME RULE ALL ROUNI.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 169, 26 October 1910, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 26. HOME RULE ALL ROUNI.

If the British mind is slow to grasp a point, once it has grasped it, it holds to it with bulldog tenacity. But there is no defined British mind, for although it is probable that all people of the islands comprising the United Kingdom "think Imperially" they also think locally. To the citizen of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales the Imperial events of the past few decades are familiar enough. The average Briton may not know that Auckland is not a suburb of Adelaide, that Wellington is not in the Northern Territory, or that Brisbane is not an electorate of New South Wales, but he knows that New Zealand has a Parliament of its own, that Australia is self-governing, that Sir Wilfrid Laurier is Premier of Canada, and that South Africa is "out on its own." The Briton who has sufficient individuality believes that if South Africa, Australia, Canada and New Zealand are entitled to conduct their own affairs, it is competent for the home-born Briton, whether he lives in England, Scotland, Ireland or Wales, to conduct the business of the units of the union. There is no greater contrast to be found on earth than that to be discovered within the confines of the British Isles. It is certain that the Cockney who strays into the "wilds" of Ireland is as much a stranger as he would be in the far north of Kamschatska, that the ''new-chum" Welshman in Devonshire would be on foreign soil, and that the Highlander would fail at once to understand the aspirations, the liopes and the ideals of the man from Glamorganshire. But they all understand that "England," which does not confer the benefits of self-govern-ment on any one of the four component countries of the United Kingdom, has, strangely enough, granted such concessions to her possessions thousands of miles away. The Briton at Home knows, if lie knows anything at all, that the root and branch, the foundation of success in every British dominion is British blood, British folk, British habits, British institutions, and British thoroughness. He wants to know why the transplanted Briton should be considered better able to rule his own affairs than the Briton who stays at home and makes himself wealthy enough to lend £2,500,000,000 to the foreigner. He may wonder why Canada has provincial jurisdiction for Manitoba or the Yukon territory, Nova Scotia, or elsewhere, with the requisite lieutenant-governors, when Wales has no "say" of its own, Ireland is ruled in Downing street,, Scotland is virtually controlled in the English capital, and England herself is not directed solely by English representation. These Britons may wonder why Australia, which is all British and wants to be "all white," has six State Parliaments besides the Federal Parliament, and seven governors, considering that the aims, ideals and hopes of all good Australians are along the same channel and have the same goal in view. Ireland might easily ask what made Britain concur in the granting of autonomy under a Dutch Premier to Africa when Ireland was not permitted reasonable freedom? Scotland could easily quote the ease of New Zealand in support of her demand to be permitted the management of «er political affairs. The tenacity we have mentioned will not only decide the variant Britons of the British Isles to keep fighting for "Home Rule all round," but it will decide the central authorities to fight every effort to such an end. Mr. Birrell's ideal Empire federation, having a central Parliament in which representatives from all nations within the Empire might sit, is by no means a farfetched one. The. affairs of the nations within the Empire are understood only by the people of the nations. If these affairs were conducted to the satisfaction of the units the cohesion of the whole must be necessarily perfect. The component parts of the Empire may agree on those points that are actually Imperial, but can never agree on those points which are purely local. To effect absolute cohesion and unanimity throughout the Empire it is necessary that no nation in the union is "dragged at the tail of England," and it may yet be found that it is convenient to the central Government that each nation in the United Kingdom handles its own affairs las each best understands how to do.