FROM COLONY TO SOVEREIGN POWER

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 271, 1 September 1944, Page 12

FROM COLONY TO SOVEREIGN POWER

NEW ZEALAND AND THE STATUTE OF WESTMINSTER: Five Lectures by J. C. Beaglehole, F. L. W. Wood, Leslie Lipson and R. O. McGechan. Edited by J. C. Beaglehole. Published by Victoria University College, Wellington, 1944.

(Reviewed for. "The. Listener" by

WILLIS

AIREY

N July, Mr. Fraser was reported to have said in Canada that it was no good for the British Commonwealth to enter international organisations en bloc, and that each Dominion should speak for itself in foreign policy-‘Collabora-tion, consultation and mutual help in peace and war, ‘yes,’ but subordination, ‘no.’" In effect, Mr. Fraser said that he was well pleased with the basis of free co-operation on which the British Commonwealth was working. Yet this called forth an editorial in a leading daily accusing Mr. Fraser of taking an isolationist stand in Empire affairs, while a correspondent talked of Mr. _ Fraser committing the country "to a policy of non-co-operation with Britain in any international organisation,"

Such outbursts, which are far too frequent in New Zealand, reveal a failure to appreciate the real significance of the development of the Commonwealth, The publication by Victoria University College of five lectures relating to the Statute of Westminster, by members of its staff, representing History, Law, and Political Science, is therefore timely. For if New Zealand is not to fail in its share of the tasks that the world to-day presents, it must not bury its head in the sands of the 19th century and thereby repudiate the achievement of British statesmanship by which the British peoples can jointly and severally make their contribution. The name of the volume scarcely reveals its scope. The two opening lectures by Dr. J. C. Beaglehole, who also contributes a preface, give the historical background to the Statute from the 18th century; for as he says, the Statute is "part of a development that, even if inevitable, seems to be singular in the history of the world.’’ Quietly and lucidly he shows how colonial selfgovernment developed, and how fatal it would have been to try to check it

short of its emergence into sovereignty, even if, when the time came to’ recognise what was actually , happening, "Australia and New drew rather prim and maidenly skirts about them, as at the sight of sisters overbold poking into the drains, or eventhe implication was unmistakableflirting on the streets with vice." Sovereignty, however, we must think of "with deference to the needs of a greater society," yet not unmindful of the possible "impact of a small nation on future events, when its force is wisely and courageously applied." The important fact that Professor McGechan brings out in his discussion of the legal aspects of the proposed adoptiofi by New Zealand of the Statute of Westminster-and one that oldschool Imperialists should note- is that at present. New Zealand lacks legal capacity to meet all the demands of the wer that we are waging in collaboration with Britain and the other Dominions; in fact, the risk of illegality has wisely been run in the interest of security. (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) This is not a product of Dominion status but of the hard facts of geography and world politics. Adoption of the Statute would clear up doubts about our power of extra-territorial legislation, which is needed, for instance, for the control of convoys between here and Australia; but there remains the knotty question whether we should need further an Imperial Statute to remove certain constitutional disabilities in dealing with. other matters connected with merchant shipping. Professor, Wood _ discusses what Dominion sovereignty amounts to in political practice, in a harder world than that in which the Commonwealth relationship was conceived and brought to birth. How far is the sovereignty of a small state an illusion against the hard facts of preponderant military and economic power? In New Zealand, where we have at least our share of loose thinking, a little more tough grappling with these realities would not be amiss, After an examination of past events, Professor Wood is prepared to argue that the structure of the Commonwealth, involving as it does the concepts of independence and co-operation, "has done more than any other device of which we have knowledge to pre- serve both the dignity and the genuine freedom of small nations in our turbulent modern world." Because he deals in futures, Professor Lipson’s contribution on a foreign policy for New Zealand inevitably most invites criticism. Among much’ good analysis there peeps out something of what many who experienced it at the end of the last war may be inclined to call the liberal illusion-the belief that peace is a matter of "creating in all countries an overwhelming public sentiment in favour of supra-national authority." The illusion lies in underestimating the influence of economic and. social conditions in the formation and working of public sentiment. That is the most essential field for effort. Peace for the next generation, as Professor Lipson says, depends mainly on the continued co-operation of Britain, America, the U.S.S.R. and China. But we are not helping to achieve this by basing the whole argument, as he does, on the assumption that Britain and America "will definitely cling together." Co-operation will not be automatic; it will be maintained only by patient effort on both sides. Nor is it necessarily a sound basis in itself. It could conceivably take ‘a form that would arouse increasing opposition and once more split the world into conflicting groups. It is also posssible that the triumph of certain forces in America would force Britain and the U.S.S.R. into an opposition bloc, Britain and America are not invariable constants, but the product of the varying play of forces within them. The unity of the three main Powers on which so much depends, can be achieved only by the ascendancy of the more progressive forces in the capitalist countries; it can exist only on terms that could include a free and progressive Chine. Post-war conditions are likely to be favourable to a_ liberal working of capitalism as a basis for such co-operation. But this will not be the beginning of eternal peace; it will rather provide a period in which we shall have a chance to work out, more peacefully than has for long seemed possible, the social and economic conflicts whose solution is the basis of international peace. In that period, small progressive nations have a real part to play.