BRITAIN AND THE DOMINIONS.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 March 1916, Page 6

BRITAIN AND THE DOMINIONS.

.ii. situ AN NKWiil'AMStt'S APPKK- ' CIATIUN. The Arbeiter £c-itung, t'ne organ of ; llw Ail.-UkUl Uurkiltg «S!W, puoiisllcs 1 a leading ardile 011 "Greater Uritaiu in j the War, ' which shows a keen apprecia- ; tion of the enormous services rendered j to the Kmoire by the dominions and ; .inoiiii:-, and 01 tile new bonds of sympathy which the war is creating between .he Mother Country ami her children. When v.e arc tout (says the Arbeiter /eitung) that Canada is supplying 200,100 men for the British armies and : 00,000 munition workers, it is reasonable to doubt these great totals. The population of the Dominion does not permit of this effort, but even when one ; strikes out the half of these, the undis- ! putcd fact remains that what Canada ! id doing and has done in this war far surpasses all expectations. And it is not only Canada. It is ' Australia, Xew Zealand, South Africa : and the rest, great territories- for which I the word ''colony" is not the right term. ! They are independent States, lint of ' their own will and affection they acknowledge the over-lordship of England. England has not the power to compel | their assistance in war. The conduct of Canada and Australia in naval matters shows that it is not. possible for England to command their complete unanimity with the Home Land, but no controversy whifh has arisen on those and other subjects between England and her dominions, no friction ever caused by different points of view lias any influence ■Pit the powerful sentiment of inward oneness and inter-connection. The Arbeiter Zeitung continues:—"Although the European war which flamed out because of Serbia's action, and whose most important battles have been fought in Europe, does not in the slightest degree affect the interests or the seenrity of Canada or Australia, yet of their own free will these Canadians ami Australians have shed their blood freely on all battlefields for England. The national feeling, the consciousness of their common mission, has conquered all cleavage of interest, and the remembrance of tho blood which Mother Country and Daughter Countries have shed, together in a common cause will create' a still closer union, and will, after this war is over, contribute to the more complete consolidation of tile Imperial edifice of Greater Britain. "However little the present aspect of the war, whose end is not in sight, encourages us to look beyond the war, the lines of development of the British Empire are clear. Whether the English win this war or are defeated, the result will he the strengthening of the feeling that j they belong to one another, the founding of new Imperial formations for the future." The generosity and insight of this article presents a striking contrast to the petty niggling and blindness displayed in the North Herman press regarding the relations between Britain and her dominions. It was only the other day that a leading Conservative journal of Berlin was gloating over the prospect of the dominions withdrawing from the war on the ground that their soldiers were pushed too. frequently into the firing line.