CORRESPONDENCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 February 1922, Page 7

CORRESPONDENCE.

THE WRECKERS. (To the Editor.) Sir,—By this time it will have dawned upon the advocates of a Parliaanent of Empire that they have succeeded In awakening the Bengal Tiger, and there are not 7 wanting indications that there are' many vigorous years ahead of the Anglo-Saxon, ere the jungle King goes to sleep again. During tte visit of Mr. Lionel Curtis I wrote as follows :—"Do the promoters of the Parliament of Empire movement think for one moment that India will calmly submit to the degradation of being excluded from the council halls of our Empire, in the up-building of whi/h her blood and treasure have been unstlntingly spilt with that of the white man after her sacrifices at the altar of freedom? Would she not justly claim a place 'neath the wings of her goddess? Yet to grant her this right would mean our social, political, and racial annihilation. To deny it would bring about a set of conditions disastrous to both races. The only safe course points to leaving things as they are. Though the vote taken at the Victoria. College debate suggested that mine was a voice in the wilderness, It is generally admitted now what I contended then, that India is the pivot of the whole position. The weak point in the propaganda of the Imperial Democrats was their failure to realise that unless full Imperial franchise carried with it full migratory right, then that franchise had no uneanlng. To tell a man that he is our social, political, and racial equal, while at the same time we have laws upon our Statute Book, which say distinctly that we regard him as an undesirable, is something more than a/ contradiction in terms. It’s an absurdity, but it is what we call "Imperial Statemanship." The Indian might be a lot of things, but he is not always a fool. And when the overseas conference tried to extricate itself from a ridiculous position by claiming that • each Dominion had the right to choose its own citizens, he quickly applied that right to himself, and India for the Indians is the result. The tragedy of the position is that the demand for a Parliament of Empire had no foundation, in fact, it had its origin in the first place in each successive overseas premier trying to outdo his predecessor in Court drivel, which he proudly imagined was Imperialism, and to-day he has got to get down on all fours at Panama, or thereabouts, if be wants to make an impression. The’ benefits from an Imperial franchise were speculative and chimera!. The dangers of such a cause weVe immediate and real. Thanks to the work of the wreckers, the dream of Japan that she would one day stand at the head of a united East is some centuries nearer realisation than it appeared a few short years ago.—l am, etc., FRANK BELL. Toko, February 2.