PROBLEMS OF EMPIRE.
Imperialist—and it is our business to remove the basis on which it rests, and to reconcile the spirit of democracy with the ideal of 'United Empire.'
There are two other evils incidental to our present system of Imperial Government, to which allusion must be made:—
Want of knowledge of Imperial Questions.1. Imperial business and domestic business each require special training, special study, and special aptitudes The training of the School Board, the County Council, or the Trade Union may be admirable for one who seeks to take part in domestic legislation; but something more is required from the Member of a Parliament which deals with the great questions of Imperial and Colonial policy. To those who have travelled much in the Empire, the assurance with which some men speak on Imperial and Colonial questions, of which they have no special knowledge, is amazing. Nowhere has this been more conspicuous than in the treatment of the war in South Africa and its conduct.
Confused issues.2. Under present conditions, when an appeal is made to the country, Imperial questions and domestic questions are submitted to the electors in a confused issue. At the election of 1900 every domestic issue was subordinated to the one Imperial question—the war in South Africa. At some future election the converse of what happened in 1900 might take place. Some question of domestic policy might be to the front, and the party might be returned to power on that issue, which perhaps, in the opinion of the electorate, was the less qualified to carry on the government of the Empire. That is a danger to which Mr. Chamberlain alluded in a recent speech at Birmingham; and it is in my belief a very real danger to the Empire.
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