EMPIRE SOLIDITY.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 April 1920, Page 5

EMPIRE SOLIDITY.

THE HOME RULE PROBLEM. GOODWILL OF THE DOMINIONS. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyrlght Received April 7, 9.40 p.m.~ London, April G. The Manchester Guardian, commenting on Mr. Bonar Law's speech in the House of Commons in reference to Dominion Home Rule, with special reference to the fact that the South African Republicans are now endeavoring to apply the argument in their favor, dwells tin the importance of Ministers thinking carefully when speaking at the centre of the Empire in order to avoid misinterpretation. The Guardian contends that General Smuts is absolutely right in his contention that the Dominions are not entitled to secede from tiie Empire, smd it quotes General Smuts as saying the relation of the Crown to the province of the Cape or the Transvaal is precisely the same aa its relation to Cornwall or Lancashire. The Guardian declared General Smuts is perfectly sound in maintaining that no portion of a single Sovereign State can throw off its allegiance on its own authority without an act of rebellion or revolution. "We could not do it in England, and it cannot lawfully be done in Canada or South Africa," adds the Guardian. The paper attributes Mr. Bonar Law's statement to the fact that we have so much good reason to rely on the goodwill of tho Dominions that any attempt to force their loyalty is unthinkable. If to-day a Dominion wished its formal tie to be severed, then a friendly though foreign Dominion would so clearly be a greater support to us in the world than an unfriendly one held down by force of arms if that is conceivable. Then, as Mr. Bonar Law says, we should certainly not attempt to force her, but that is not to say that any British Dominion which might give us, as it were, a month's notice, would find that notice accepted.—lmperial Service.