A DEMOCRATIC EMPIRE.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 August 1917, Page 3

A DEMOCRATIC EMPIRE.

To the Editor. Sir,—The advocates of a democratic ■ Empire sidestep India with great enthusiasm. The chief apostle of the movement, Mr. Lionel Curtis, left here to go to India so as to study the question on the spot, and there are not wanting those who opine that the studies of that energetic gentleman should have commenced, and not ended there. India !,ls the pivot of the whole position. If ! the- Empire were all white, then the J idea of a democratic confederation might ; be alright, but as the Empire is at present constituted the first sitting •■would result in the Empire losing either its Anglo-Saxon head or its Asiatic tail. They would be up against the oldest law known to humanity, the law of race antagonism. Nature prevents loss of species amongst the lower animals by the inecundity of hybrids, and she seems to have protected race types amongst men by race antagonism, and neither Mr. Lionel Curtis nor any other advocate of the mis-named imperialism can name one solitary instance in history where the 'white and cultured man have dwelt successfully on terms of social and political equality on the same soil, in anything like equal numbers. Do these gentlemen think for one moment that India would submit to the degradation of being excluded from the council halls of an Empire, in the upbuilding of which her blood and treasure had been unstintingly spilt, with that of the Anglo-Saxon? After her sacrifices at the alter of freedom, could she not justly claim a place neath the wings of her goddess? The simple justice of her demand would be unanswerable, yet to include her 'would mean our social and' political annihilation, for if full Imperial franchise does nob carry with it full migratory rights, then that franchise has no meaning. To exclude her would bring about a set of conditions disastrous to both races. political machinery of Empire is allowed to remain as it is, then India might he content to remain as she is, We have all to lose, and nothing to gain by the proposed change. The case against the proposed Imperial straight-jacket might be summed up thus: (1) The history of ; concrete constitutions is that they cause internal and external friction, (2) Our present form of Imperialism gives us the maximum of social and political domestic freedom, with the minimum of Imperial interference. (3) The growth of our national and political ambitions are in no way retarded by our present Im- ! perial unifaction. (4) The Imperial Government, knowing that the proposal is loaded with unpleasant and embarassing possibilities likely to cause trouble ■with foreign powers, have, with a view to protecting the Empire, discouraged its propaganda. (5; There is no demand in act for the proposed change other than ~ that existing in the vanity-ridden im- "■ agination of some of our trouble bedecked politicians, ninety per cent of tho I population being content with things as they are, Finally, the British Empire, with its millions of multi-colored inhabitants, hae been held together by bonds , of hereditary and sympathy of the V dominant races. These flexible forces t having stood the strain and stress of centuries, need no amending.—l am, etc., PRANK BELL.