DThe Daily News. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1916. THE SUPREME TEST OF EMPIRE.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 February 1916, Page 4

DThe Daily News. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1916. THE SUPREME TEST OF EMPIRE.

Much has been written and spoken concerning the whole-hearted wny in which the dominions have joined hands with the Motherland in her hour of need. The world has been thrilled by the magnificent clash and gallantry of the Anzac heroes, but it would seem that even yet the people of the Motherland, including some of her statesmen, do not realise how the dominions have embraced the Imperial spirit and welded the bonds of unit}' into a chain that has no weak link. There seems to be an impression in England that the practical patriotism of the dominions was a sentiment of sudden growth, instead of its being a latent power that only required being called into activity. At the luncheon tendered to Mr. Fisher (Australia's ■High Commissioner) at the House of Commons, Mr. Balfour, who presided, dwelt at some length on this theme of Imperial unity, and it is surprising to lind how little even that great statesman understood the real sentiments of the overseas dominions before the war. He, however, only voiced the woeful lack of knowledge that has heretofore been so general in the Old Country concerning their own dominions, otherwise he could hardly have ventured to state that previous to the war it had always been a matter of speculation whether the Empire was so loosely knit together that it was really capable of standing the strain of a great orisis. To regard the help of tlie dominions in the South African war as a happy augury of that thorough loyalty which the present great struggle has evoked seems to indicate how little the statesmen of England have studied the people of the overseas dominions, and Mr. Fisher, in the course of his reply, rightly emphasised this fact when lie said that the grave doubts regarding the position of the overseas dominions prior to the war was much more in evidence in Britain than In the dominions, one of tha reasons (decidedly thA foremost one)' -being the lack- Of knowledge-in-the Motherland* dominions, and he pointed 1 tout the rueaus (which would rectify this state of affairs, ifijlte iuturs,. ©ere eaa-aq-longer

any question of the strength of the tie which binds the peoples of the Empire together, for it has been tested bv the most severe strain the world h&3 zitx witnessed. The Australians and New Zeiilanders have immortalised the Empire's unity, and luve convincingly demonstrated to the world at large what that unity means. Mr. Balfour-did not spare Ills words of eulogy on the magnificent achievements ot' the Australasian-), .which, he said, "had proved to all mankind. and before the tribunal of histovy, that the free, self-governing dominions can cherish sentiments of unity which had been supposed only possible under a central form of government." After the war British statesmen should make it a point of honor, as well as of duty, lo visit tlif overseas dominions and learn for themselves how solidly the links of Empire have been forged, whereby the test of unity has enabled the Empire to face and overcome the most intense struggle and to afford an illustration of the greatest experiment in Empire development the world has yet seen. Only those who know how woefully ignorant the. people of the Old Country are, as a rule, of not only the conditions of life in the dominions, hut even of the geographical divisions, can adequately estimate the need there is for widespread information, to be circulated in Britain relative to Australia and Xew Zealand. New Zealand is still believed (very generally) to be part of Australia, an error that is fostered by the use of the term Australasia. 'Probably, after the war much of this ignorance will disappear, and the people of the Motherland will take a deeper and keener interest in the overseas dominions. The. sentiments which are common to both have stood the hardest test it is possible to apply, and the Empire will emerge from the war with stronger ties than ever—ties that will endure for al! time. It is well that there are occasions such as that which enabled Mr. Balfour to dilate upon Imperial unity. They all help to improve the relationship between the Motherland and the self-governing dominions, a nd serve to convince the world of the true moaning and strength of the British Empire.