Evening star., 1926-11-13
BACKGROUND OF EVENTS
BY PAUL Y. COLLINS.

feel implicit faith in her full and free
nationhood, upon the basis Of equality
with every other member Of the COM
monwealth. That implicit faith she
does not possess today"
AS soon as this speech had reach
ed South Africa by cable it was chal-
lenged by Gen. Smutz, who, in a
public speech declared:
1--WE do not wish to leave the en-
pire and take upon our shoulders the
consequences of such action.
We have a big status in the empire
today and big status in the world.
That status was not acquired by big
talk of threats Of fighting. 1 do not
wish our people to be put to shame.
4 South Africa is we'll disposed
to the British Empire, and the impress
sion must not be allowed to get about
that this is not so.''
To this rebuke, Gen. HertZog re-
joins:
II emphasized within the British
Empire. We never dreamed of ask
ing anything else; we only desire clar-
ity, where now there Is TOO much
room for double interpretations"
From Canada came a voice in tune
with that from South Africa, when
Premier Mackenzie King expressed
the jealousy Of the Dominions as to
the imperial Great Britain:
This diversity (of Dominion inter-
ests) is sometimes left out Of account
in the habit we have formed Of speak.
ing Of all the countries Of the empire
whose representatives sit on this side
of the table, under the collective term
Of the Dominions,' as If they were
not individual countries, so much as
examples of type, and the Inference
between them were unimpOrtaHt, in
comparison with the distinction be-
tween them all and the mother CLun-
try"
Yet within the empire there per-
sst considerable economic advantages
of increasing Importance. One-third
of the imports into Great Britain
comes from the Dominions, as half of
the exports from the island goes out
to the Dominions,S as shown by the
statistics for the first .siX months Of
1926. This contrasts with statistics
covering 1918, which showed that dn-
cluding what is now the Irish Free
State) only PAST per. cent of the i'm
ports and 81 per cent of the exports
were interempire, in place of S3 and so
per cent, as now.
The existence of such self-con-
tanned British world organization is
the great answer to the alleged
Asiatic League of Nations. The Brit
ish Empire, with it's India and it's hold
on Egypt and the Sudan in Eastern
Africa, and Australia and New Zea-
land, Is more Oriental in its interests
than is Soviet Russia, with its Siberia.
Premier Bruce Of Australia may
have been more aStute and broader
than appeared on the surface when he
went out of his way, under the very
shadow Of the British Parliament and
the Kings palace, to express Aus
tralian rapprochement to the Ameri-
cans, both in sympathy with the
grievances and purposes Of the Ameri-
can Revolution and with present pos
sibilities, as he indicated, of a league
between all English-speaking peoples"
for self-intereSt and self-protection.
While Americas fixed traditional
policy is against all "entanglements," +"
the numerical strength of English
speaking people is greater than that
of any possible "Asiatic League of
Nations" even without reference to
superiority in individual and national
efficiency.
The word comes from London that
| the Asiatic League of Nations is be-
| ing formed as a hostile counterpoise
to the Genevan League of Nations -
and that it is aimed primarily at Great
! Britain. 1t is attributed TO the hatred
of the British in both China and
Turkey, and, to less degree, in
Afghanistan.
The As;atic League is taken with