But what are these few assets compared with the greatly extended line of defense now left to the Dominion to keep up? What is that to the great problem of how to develop the native races? Australia is interested in developing Queensland, a tropical region, not the distant island beyond. The question of labor is bad enough for themselves, without having added regions to worry about. Throughout the Pacific the problem of where to secure man-power is pressing. Hawaii cries for labor; Samoa is in a similar state; Fiji is troubled with the indentured Indians now there. Go where one will, the islands would yield readily enough if cheap labor were available. But Australia and New Zealand are not willing to exploit these islands at the expense of cheap Asiatic labor which evolves into a racial problem as soon as its returns become adequate. As for the mandates both labor and capital in the South Seas are not keen about these war orphans. A further problem is, what will happen when the policy applied to island possessions conflicts with the course permitted by the law of the mandate? What is worse yet, the mandate over the South Seas has brought Japan closer by hundreds of miles to both New Zealand and Australia, and has thrown open the question of admission of Asiatic people to these islands. The Australasians feel that they are obliged to protect not only themselves from Asiatic competition, but the native races as well. If they are to carry out the provisions of the mandate to rule the islands for the good of the natives, they feel that they cannot introduce Asiatic labor, which undermines the natives economically and morally every time it is attempted. These are some of the problems Australasia inherited from the Peace Conference.
How have they affected the relations of New Zealand and the Commonwealth of Australia with Great Britain? They have put a new strain upon the empire as such; they have put an added strain upon the relations between Japan and Great Britain; they have driven a wedge into the Anglo-Japanese Alliance.
Further, the whole question of mandates as it pertains to the Pacific has completely opened new sores. The island of Yap, which has been in the press so much of late, is an example. A blow at so vital a factor in world relations as cables would be like a blow on the medulla oblongata. Yet under that new and misleading term, "mandate," Yap became Japanese, and the near future is not likely to know just what was done when Germany's colonies were apportioned under its ruling. Yet what is fair for Great Britain and the Dominions should be fair for Japan, and if mandate means possession for one it ought to mean it for the other. But where do we come in and where the peace of the Pacific? Already, as stated elsewhere, Japan has had in mind the fortification of the Marshall Islands. She is proceeding to fortify the Bonin Islands and the Pescadores. She is, according to a very recent rumor,—and rumors are really the only things one can secure in such matters,—establishing an airship station on the southeast coast of Formosa,—not on the west, which would shorten her distance to China, but on the east, cutting down mileage to the Philippines. And we? Well, we know what we are about, too. Hence, the sooner such matters as mandates are defined, the better for the world.
4
How would these things work out with the new British arrangement as to the control of the Dominions? We have seen that behind the whole struggle for the development of an Australian navy was the desire for greater independence. As long as the war lasted, no troublesome topics were broached. Now that the war is over, one may expect the feathers to begin to fly. The Dominions are not stifling their desire for greater and greater freedom. They were involved in a colossal war without ever having been consulted. They feel that now they have earned their right to express judgment on international affairs. They realize that nothing could be done effectively if Downing Street were hampered by several wills at work at the same time. Yet it is obvious that the people of the Dominions are concerned first with their own affairs, as nations, and are devoted to Britain only in a secondary manner. They are now conscious of their power, and are determined to wield it. They have made and are doing everything to continue to make friends on their own, by whom they mean to stand through thick and thin. At the Peace Conference they were not inferior to any of the deliberators, and signed the Peace Treaty as virtual members of the League of Nations.
"But," asks the Wellington "Evening Post," "are the Dominions ever to cast an international vote against the Mother Country on a question relating, say, to the future of the Pacific regarding which their interests and wishes might rather harmonize with those of the United States?"
Mr. Massey, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, on the other hand, held "that the Dominions had signed the Treaty not as independent nations in the ordinary sense, but as nations within the Empire or partners in the Empire."
But to show how complicated the whole position was, a Mr. W. Downie Stewart, M.P., pointed out that
When New Zealand signed the Peace Treaty ... she took upon herself the status of a power involving herself in all the rights and obligations of one of the signatories.... That means that she may have created for herself a new status altogether in the world of foreign affairs, and instead of being an act to bring together more closely the component parts of the Empire, it may be that it was the first and most serious step toward obtaining our independence and treating ourselves as a sovereign power.
And in connection with Samoa he says the time may come when, having been recognized as an independent power, they will be told "we look to you in future, whenever a question of internal affairs arises, to act as an independent power, making peace or war on your own initiative."