Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1943. EMPIRE TALK AND ACTION.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 December 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1943. EMPIRE TALK AND ACTION.

gOME of those who took part in the latest debate in the House of Commons on the subject of Empire relations,- —a debate which arose on an amendment to the Address-in-Reply regretting that it had not been possible to call an Imperial conference to consider closer unity within the Commonwealth after the Avar —rather obviously failed to distinguish between the realities and the forms of Empire fellowship and co-operation. A very good reply to the amendment just mentioned was made by the British Deputy Prime Minister (Mt Attlee) when lie said he did not think a succession of Imperial conferences “would really show I hat we had closer relations with the Dominions any more than a number of very formal dinner parties would mean that one was specially friendly with the-people across the way—it was much more friendly if they dropped in after breakfast.”

The commanding fact about Empire relationships—at all events those between the Mother Country and the Dominions — is that in spite of their lack of formality and even of formal shape, they have proved themselves, under a searching test, in days both of peace and of war, to be remarkably strong and well-knit. In such -ways as are available and aided, of course, by the latter-day improvement in cfimmunications of all kinds — an iirfprovement that is far from having been carried to its limits —a remarkably good and close understanding in affairs of mutual concern, not least the life and death issues of the present Avar, has been built up betAveen the autonomous Parliaments of the partner States of the Empire. It is one of the best features of the total situation that where questions of moment to the whole Empire are at stake there is a very general avoidance of the paltry party wrangling that politicians have not yet learned to discard in dealing with domestic affairs.

A meeting of the Prime Ministers of the Empire no doubt Avill have to be held before long, and certainly when the time comes to lay foundations of peace. It is to be remembered always, however, that each Dominion Prime Minister is just as definitely answerable to the Parliament he represents for anything he may say or do in attending an Imperial conference as is the British Government to the Mother of Parliaments.

In anticipatory theorising' on the subject of Empire political organisation, the inability of an assembly of Empire Prime Ministers to act with authority as a full-powered executive has at times been regarded as a crippling defect, and proposals, none of them practicable, have been advanced for the creation of an Imperia] Parliament. The saving fact of the situation is that the diagnosis of the theorists in this matter has proved to be erroneous. Regarding Eire as the exception which proves the rule, the self-governing States of the Empire plainly have achieved an - excellent working understanding and there is no obvious reason why it should not be extended.indefinitely.

This in no way implies that there should be any neglect of methodical effort io build up and enrich the relationship between the partner States of the Empire. What it does imply is that action and effort should be concentrated rather on the realities than on the forms of inter-imperial co-operation. The manner in. which the countries of the Empire have worked and are working together in the supreme emergency of the present Avar could not well be improved upon. In the- days after the war, the members of the British Commonwealth will be faced by great and magnificent opportunities of taking combined and united action for their mutual good and that of all mankind. The use made of these opportunities will be determined by factors of enlightenment, moral resolution-and enterprise. If the several Parliaments of the Commonwealth make worthy use of their opportunities they will have no difficulty in collaborating for the common good and there will be little enough need to worry about the alleged inadequacy of machinery of Empire scope.