FEDERAL UNION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 March 1940, Page 2

FEDERAL UNION

POLITICIAN ON OUTLOOK. Answering a critic who had attacked him for insisting that the details of the Federal Union plan should be realistically and carefully examined, the Hon Harold Nicolson, M.P., writes: But is immigration into Australia and New Zealand a small detail? Was it, in fact, impertinent to ask what happens if the Federal Government decide to people northern Australia with Germans or Japanese and if Australia and New Zealand refuse absolutely to accede to this demand? Or, again, most Federal Unionists agree that there must be some central Federal Parliament or Council composed of representatives of all the member States elected by direct popular suffrage. In what proportions are the seats in this Parliament, or upon this Council, to be distributed among the several States? No self-re-specting Federal Unionist would admit for a moment that any arbitrary method of allocation (such as the distinction between the great and small Powers) could be adopted. One is thus obliged to allot the seats according either to area or population. Under such a system of allocation, France could obtain 41 members, Italy 43 members, Germany 72 members, the United States 120 members. India 300 members, Great Britain 37 members. Scotland 4 members, Norway 3 members, Australia 2 members, and so on. Is it conceivable that the British people would agree to hand over the decision of peace and war, the control of the navies, the administration of colonies, or such economic measures as would directly affect their own unemployment problems, to a Parliament in which they were condemned to be in a perpetual minority? Is it conceivable that Norway or New Zealand would agree to surrender their “independence” to a body on which their representation was far less than 1 per cent? To believe such things is surely to indulge in fantasies.