THE NEED OF REAL UNITY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8392, 4 April 1907, Page 4

THE NEED OF REAL UNITY.

The last day of the debate on the Address to the ; Throne in the House of Commons produced, on the' Continuation of the Unionist Colonial preference amendment,,,another important Imperial discussion. Always impressive, it is : not too much to say that Mr A. Balfour enthralled even the Government side as he warned the House that what they had to do was to find a plan by which the, growth of a consciousness of a great future, which the -young colonies possess, in so great; a measure, jwas to be combined in .communion with some higher unity between the colonies aiid the Mother Country.,,A; Central "Imperial Council or an Imperial Zollverin were attractive enough, but impracticable. , Great Britain was doing a great deal in the way of defence; and the colonies, widely scattered as they with no organised system ofi munication, had allcome to an agreement that mutual services would be given to an important extent if only Britain would establish some form of commercial preference within , the Empire. To reject the amendment, Mr Balfour said, would be to, make the House a party to ruling out of the Colonial Conference any discussion of these tdjpics. IJut the big battalions told, and the cliyision resulted in a Government majority pf 255.