Empire Federation ?
It was well that Lord Selborne, replying for the Government in the debate in the House of Lords last week on post-war conditions, made it clear that in talking of " one Imperial Federated Parliament, representing all the Parliaments of the Empire, sitting not in this country at all but in some much more central spot such as Cape- town," he was speaking for himself alone. It would be alarming indeed if there were the smallest hint of official sanction for a proposal whose only and inevitable outcome, if the attempt were ever made to adopt it, would be the break-up of the Commonwealth. The Dominions for the last thirty years have been systematically, consistently and resolutely moving away from the whole idea of federation. They reached full agreement as to their relationship and constitutional position at the Imperial Conference of 1926, and their conclusions have been given legislative force in the Statute of Westminster, which provides for a full autonomy which is the very antithesis of federation. As son of a former High Com- missioner for South Africa, Lord Selborne might have been expected to realise what reactions his speech would produce in that Dominion in particular. At any rate, he must have discovered that if he read Monday's Times, with a Capetown message reporting the Cape Times' scathing comments, ending with the assertion that " there is little chance of any Dominion being willing to share in any form of imperial federation. . . . The sooner and the more thoroughly this is understood in London the better." Fortunately, there are few circles in London where that is not thoroughly understood.
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