of India being fully represented at all future Imperial Conferences, and that the necessary steps should be taken to secure the assent of the various Governments in order that the next Imperial Conference may be summoned and constituted accordingly. (Resolution No. VII, of April 13.)

The capital Resolution of 1907 had confined the right of membership in the Conference to Ministers representing the Governments of Britain and the self-governing Dominions. By a clear implication, therefore, the basis of membership is national autonomy; and, in fact, the whole tendency of the Conference has conformed to that assumption. Here, then, is the dilemma confronting the British Government. For the purpose of the Imperial Conference, which is to be the organ of the Britannic Commonwealth, either the Government of India must be raised at once to that level of autonomy which the Dominions have already reached, or else the Dominion Governments must be reduced to whatever level is regarded as the limit of safety for the Indian Empire. What has to be realized once for all is that in dealing with any particular question (such as defence, tariffs, immigration, or anything else) the Imperial Conference cannot work unless each of the participant Governments has full power to deal with it according to its own judgment. For example, by the constitution of 1907 each Government has one vote, irrespective of the number of its representatives, the theory being that nation-States as such are all equal. To give a subordinate Government a vote would mean giving its suzerain two and itself none. Free and not-free cannot "consult " and " concert

as

equals in the Britannic Commonwealth. But since the Dominions would, of course, refuse to have their liberties reduced, is the British Government really prepared to meet the situation by enfranchising the Government of India in an equal degree? If not, it has leapt in the dark into a very ticklish place.

What degree of autonomy would have to be conceded to the Government of India in order to equalize it with the Dominion Governments? In this context autonomy may be defined simply as the freedom of a State Government from external control. Before this war the right of the Dominions to determine the nature and strength of their own naval or military establishments, to control them during peace, and to decide whether and how far they would participate offensively in any war, had been established beyond dispute. They were also admittedly free to settle their own policies in regard to tariffs, immigration, and shipping, at least up to the point where existing foreign treaties might begin to be impinged. Thus defence and all economic or social matters were included in the category of Dominion autonomy, and, consequently, of subjects in regard to which the Dominion

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Governments could consult and concert on an equal footing with the British Government and each other. There remains only foreign affairs, which had been a more disputable territory. But the frequent assertion of centralist writers that the Imperial Conference never handled foreign affairs is contrary to fact. In 1907 the Conference insisted upon discussing the current questions of the New Hebrides Convention and the Newfoundland Fisheries; and in 1911 the Declaration of London, in regard to which the British Government themselves implicitly recognized the claim by pressing the Conference to a vote upon the Imperial policy. But whatever may have been the exact position before, the right of the Dominions to be consulted in matters of foreign policy as equals, i.e. as nation-States not less free than Britain herself to control their own destinies, has now been established by the principal Resolution of the recent Conference, which the British Government accepted. In short, the Britannic Commonwealth is to be a league of sovereign nation-States. Is the Indian Empire to be included in their number?

The question is urgent and cannot be shirked. Test cases are bound to arise in rapid succession. The British Government has promised that immediately after the war it will reopen the question of the Indian Cotton Duty, in hopes of restoring the former privilege of Lancashire in the Indian market. It is highly improbable that any autonomous Government of India, concerned primarily with Indian interests, would consent to renounce both the revenue from the additional import duty and its protective benefit to Indian industry. Again, somebody will have to decide what military establishments are to be maintained out of Indian revenues after the war. But the crucial occasion may come even earlier. Arising out of the Mesopotamia scandal definite proposals for the reform of Indian administration are, we are told, already under consideration. Do these proposals take the form of more autonomy for the Viceroy-in-Council, or more control from Whitehall, i.e. strengthening the India Office, which has been advocated in certain quarters and would run directly counter to the spirit of the Conference's Resolution?

The worst policy, to which a temptation may exist, would be to take away with one hand what has been given with the other. During the war the official practice has been startedoriginally to push the idea of federal union-of calling the Imperial Conference the "Imperial Cabinet" when it deals with foreign policy and defence. Thus the happy thought might occur of explaining to India that the Imperial Conference, in which she is to have "full" membership, is not competent to deal with the major interests of national government, these being reserved for

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the "Imperial Cabinet," which Resolution VII does not mention. But the subterfuge would be full of embarrassment. It would not withdraw the subject of tariffs from Indian autonomy, the recent Conference having actually again dealt with tariff policy. And it seems clear that the Dominion representatives themselves had no intention of assigning any inferior status to the Government of India. The principal Resolution of the Conference expressly couples India with the Dominions in the demand for an adequate voice in foreign policy" and "effective arrangements for continuous consultation and concerted action by the "several " Governments. It is true that, whereas the Dominions are described as autonomous nations of an Imperial Commonwealth," India is described only as "an important part of the same. But probably this only means that the familiar word "nation" happened to suggest itself where "nation-State would have been more appropriate. "Nation" is apt to suggest a politico-racial entity, which India is not; whereas nationState" is politico-geographical, taking no account of tribal diversity. Like Canada or the South African Union, the United Kingdom is one nation-State, though comprising various tribes; Ireland being included by force of her geographical position, which in this imperfect world precludes her from becoming a separate nation-State. Similarly India, being under one Government, is potentially a nation-State as soon as that Government becomes autonomous, although racially her manifold tribes could hardly be described as a nation.

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Only two ways of dealing with the situation are apparent. One would be to accept it frankly, and try the stupendous experiment of relinquishing all Imperial control over India, trusting her equally with the Dominions to preserve the Commonwealth by "continuous consultation" and "concerted action." Surely the change would not necessarily be for the worse if the state of affairs revealed in the Mesopotamia Report is taken as the standard of comparison. A necessary preliminary would be to set up a council at Delhi, representing (not necessarily elected by) the peoples of India, to serve the purpose of a Dominion Parliament; after which it would only remain for the Emperor to appoint a Viceroy for a term of years and leave him to carry on in the same way as the Governor-General of a Dominion. But if that would be too great a plunge, the existing members of the Imperial Conference should think twice before taking the action which they have recommended to themselves by Resolution VII. The first requisite would be that the British Government should make up its mind how far it really does mean to enfranchise the Government of India. Would it genuinely

concede, for example, tariffs, immigration, and shipping? The Government of India could be made a full member of the Conference in relation to any subjects entirely within its own control; but not in relation to any subjects reserved for consideration by somebody else. In other words, partial membership of the Imperial Conference-i.e. the right of attending and voting in relation to certain matters only-would be another practicable solution of the Indian problem.

But, after all, as General Smuts said, "the instrument of Government will not be the thing that matters so much as the spirit that actuates the whole system. What kind of mutual attitude is implied in the idea of a commonwealth of nationStates? The utter confusion of mind prevailing in certain quarters is shown by the common assumption that "internationalism" implies Free Trade. If so, internationalism paradoxically denies the nation-State, and is, therefore, opposed to the whole conception of a league of nation-States, which it pretends to favour. The first principle of a nation-State is liberty to mould-so far as human effort can do it-the social character of its own community. It follows that a league of nation-States must recognize and uphold the right of each of its members to follow a policy of National Protection, implying unfettered control over the importation of either goods or people. "White Australia," for example, is a perfectly legitimate national aim, whatever other aspects it may present. The notion of a Britannic citizenship, carrying rights of travel and residence throughout the States, is derived from Roman history and is anti-national. The unit of the Britannic Commonwealth is not the citizen, but the nation-State; and the function of the Commonwealth is simply to protect and promote the development of nation-States, not citizenship in any form, which is the concern of the individual State. In dealing with the old cause of friction between India and the Dominions, which have tried to stop Asiatic immigration, the recent Imperial Conference at length hit upon the true international principle-namely, "reciprocity of treatment (Resolution XXII). Of course this does not mean, as was commonly assumed in the English Press, that the Dominions are now willing to admit Indian settlers. What the Conference has done is to recognize the reciprocal right of the Government of India to restrict European" immigration, if it should take the unlikely view that her social or economic welfare would be served thereby.

More important than any other single factor affecting the success of the Britannic Commonwealth will be the spirit in which the partner States employ the economic liberty of action which they mutually guarantee. Unless the war has taught us

nothing, or the Unseen Hand of German corruption survives the struggle, Britain, like every other member, will concentrate on production first, fostering industry before trade. Until industrial conditions, taxation, and social standards become level throughout the world we must expect that Protection will continue to be the normal policy of nation-States. But the spirit of the Commonwealth, again exhibited in an important Resolution (No. XXI) of the recent Conference, demands that when national interests have been duly safeguarded the members will all try to assist each other's economic progress by reciprocity of treatment in the form of Preference. There is more in this principle than has been generally recognized. It seals the Commonwealth as an association for mutual aid in living, covering all the abiding interests of peace, instead of letting it appear simply as a war league. And the desire voiced by General Smuts for "simplicity' of foreign policy is at bottom a plea for a self-contained trade system. Foreign policy is always concerned chiefly with economic interests.* Indeed, it may be defined, in its principal aspect, as the attitude which a State adopts towards other States for the purpose of protecting or extending the economic opportunities of its own people. The best example of a Great Power with a simple" foreign policy has been the United States in the last century, when the development of the Western territories sufficed to absorb its economic energies, foreign trade being left in the main to take care of itself. The radical mistake of British foreign policy in recent years was that it sought the wrong kind of opportunities for the wrong kind of people in the wrong places; thus getting at loggerheads with other concession-hunting Governments in every part of the world, and generally for the sake of cosmopolitan finance rather than British manufactures. To-day the Britannic Commonwealth, regarded as a whole, contains a much greater extent and variety of undeveloped natural resources than the United States of the last century. The "simple" policy which would keep it out of trouble is that which the Dominions have always advocated in the Imperial Conference-namely, to concentrate its capital and industry on the development of its own territory as the best market for its own products. A foreign policy based on that aim, reversing the tradition of Cobdenite England, would firmly uphold the practice of Britannic Preference against every challenge; but would not stir a finger to gain dubious privileges for dubious people in China or Peru.

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It is disquieting to note that nothing has yet been done in this country to implement the Preference Resolutions of the

* The historical truth of this proposition is admirably demonstrated in Mr. I. D. Colvin's most timely book, The Unseen Hand in English History.