Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1943. EMPIRE COLLABORATION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 October 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1943. EMPIRE COLLABORATION

FOLLOWING on Mr Churchill’s recent statement on the subject it presumably may be taken for granted that, the Prime Ministers of the Dominions will visit London at a comparatively early date to confer with the British Government H is very probable, too, that other similar meetings may he necessary before the war is over and that they may be called more frequently after the war than in the past. 1 here is a veiy general and growing appreciation of the desirability o c ose and frequent consultation between responsible rcpiesentati\ .. of the countries o.f the Empire. _ ' In observing, however, that the arrival of General Smuts in London seems a good moment to urge again the formation of a “permanent Imperial Cabinet,” the London Daily Mail has ionored difficulties which have always hitherto proved insuperable and are not likely to be overcome now. These difficulties are summed up in the fact that the creation of a permanent Imperial Cabinet, if that term is to be taken to mean ai body invested with executive authority, is incompatible with the maintenance of representative government m the several States of what has become a Commonwealth of Nations linked as voluntary partners. . . Little as any of the Dominions may be inclined to follow the example of Eire, which has asserted its complete independence and has remained neutral in the present war, each and all of them enjoy completely autonomous sovereignty under the Statute of Westminster. The establishment of an Imperial Cabinet exercising executive powers would reduce the Bominions to some sort of provincial status., A development of this kind, if it were practicable, could hardly be based on anything else than the creation of an Imperial Parliament, more or less on the lines of that proposed by Sir Joseph Ward at the Imperial Conference of 1911—a Parliament of Defence, to consider foreign policy and international treaties so far as they affected the 'whole Empire. It has yet to appear that a proposal of tins kind 'would meet with substantial support in any part of the Empne. It is true that the idea of a closer association of all democratic and peaceful nations is at present finding considerable support in many parts of the ■world. There is a good deal to be said, however, for the view that this aim could not be pursued more hopefully than in an extension of relationships very similar to those in which the partner States of the British Commonwealth are united. So far as the self-governing Dominions, 'with the exception always of Eire, are concerned, the recognition of complete autonomy has in no way impeded their close co-operation one •with another and with the Mother Country. The experience of the present war might very well be taken as evidence that no better constitutional relationship than that of the existing voluntary association could well be devised. That association is made effective by the unrestrained action of the Governments and Parliaments of the several Dominions and it would hardly be an improvement to entrust ruling powers to an Imperial Cabinet ■which would, not , be in any real sense responsible to these Parliaments. The need of doing everything that is possible to improve the machinery of consultation betwe’en the countries of the Empire and to make it more effective is not open to dispute. A very strong case no doubt may be made out lor setting up a permanent consultative body representing, all Empire countries—colonies as well as Dominions —but there is no visible basis on which it would be practicable to establish a permanent Imperial Cabinet in London.