A CONFERENCE OF THE EMPIRE.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 March 1917, Page 7

A CONFERENCE OF THE EMPIRE.

In the irrovalcnt and mischievous chatter about peace the world has lost sight of one great event which, unlike the hypocritical professions of Ilerr von Bethmaiin Hollweg and the machinations of interested ''pacifists," will profoundly influence the history of the World.

On Christmas Day, well chosen for the single genuine movement towards a lasting peace, the Prime Ministers Of "the self -governing Dominions were invited to attend a series of meetings of the War Cabinet, ''in order to consider urgent questions affecting the prosecution of the war, the possible conditions on which, in agreement i with our Allies, we could assent to its termination, and the problems which will then immediate- . ly arise." I The terms of the invitation are plain and prosaic, yet beneath their prose and their plainness there shines the light of an imperial imagination. The door of stout British oak has been proudly opened to its friends, who never again Will find it banged and bolted at' their approach. The Dominions, which have fought by our side in the great battle of liberty waged against the German oppressor, have earned the right of helping to make peace as they have helped to make war. From the very beginning our battle has been theirs. Wo have mingled our blood with theirs on the stricken fields of France and the Dardanelles. As they have fought and bled, bo in justice and honor will they seno. itheir representatives to the Council Chamber.

(There are many problems indeed which would remain insoluble without Mieir aid. For not merely have they 6ent their soldiers to right in Europe; they have taken by their own prowess the Colonies which the Germans have been permitted to plant iu their neighborhood. And when the peace comes in whose dictation they will bear a part, the duty will still remain to them of bringing good government and prosperity to Dominions of their own, Dominions which they have wrested from the heavy hand of Teutonism and misgovernment. The future of the Pacific, I for instance, lies largely in the hands of Australasia, and we can look forward only with the liveliest interest to the I tact and courage with which 3he will tackle a problem which once was our i tilone.

Thus it is that war puts the burden always upon the white man's back. The j Dominions have played a noble part in the war, and will shoulder henceforth a noble share of duty and responsibility. Upon the spirit in which they shoulder it will dependtt)ie future of our Empire. They will be aYked, in New Guinea and elsewhere, to perform the self-same tasks which we once performed all the world over. Grown to manhood, they are called upon at last to found and to administer Colonics of tb?ir own. And so profound a faith we have in their patience and in their sense of sound i tradition that we gladly entrust to their care the lesser Dominions, our grandchildren, over whose youth and growing manhood it will be their business to watch. .

And as the closer union, knit between us and the Dominions, will weigh them with a salutary authority, which they did not know of old, so it will make us cast of the wrinkled skin of corruption and wax young again. For the last ten years we have laid in s sad rut of folly and complacence. We have believed that so long as we cherished the House of Commons we were assured of happiness. We had carefully tended the illusion, common to all those who droop to decay, that the means were greater than the end. But at last we have shaken off our sloth, and have entered once more "the glorious ways of truth and prosperous virtue, destineJ to become great and honorable in these later ages."

In this vast enterprise the Dominions will come to our aid. They will furnish us with something of the young blood which we once gave freely to them. Truly the bread which we cast upon the waters has come back to us. Without forethought and in the gay spirit of adventure we sent our early Colonists across the sea. We taught them before Jiey went—sometimes they went because they had learned—the lessons of freedom and self-government. And now, in our age—an age which is not debased, but is, like Old Adam's, "frosty but kindly"—they come back to us, bringing with them the strength find insouciance of youth, and willing also to hear the words of wisdom which a thousand years of unbroken history have taught «s ; AN ENGLISHMAN.