EMPIRE-CITIZENSHIP AND WORLD- CITIZENSHIP [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—In your article "Empire-Citizenship and World-Citizen- ship" of 23rd ult. you say : " The most cherished privilege implied in Dominion status, which is now the axis round which our Imperial relations revolve, is fiscal autonomy.-
As a New Zealander of many allegiances—to the land of my birth, to the Mother Country, to the county of my forefathers, to the Empire and to the King who symbolizes the corporate personality of that Empire, I must emphatically decline to accept your statement, and prefer General Smuts's conception of Dominion status as a " talisman " with which " we shall go into the future " and " keep one-fourth of the human race together in perpetual peace and friendship, pursuing ideals of liberty and progress and helping in building up a new world."
To me it seems that the most cherished privilege conferred by Dominion status is the proud obligation imposed on my native land to co-operate on terms of unquestioned equality with the United Kingdom and the other States of the British Commonwealth in the creation of a new Imperial unity which shall ensure the perpetuation of the British Empire as the greatest agency the world has known for enabling civilized 'men and women to do their duty, not only to each other, but to peoples weaker and more backward than themselves.— 145 Rivermead Court, Hurlingham, S.W. 6.
[We said nothing to be interpreted as a desire to minimize the value of the British Commonwealth in the upholding of civilization. We have always held that " Dominion status " is one of the greatest political conceptions of our age. It com- bines two apparent opposites, the desire for independence and the desire for co-operation, and we still regard fiscal automony as one of the corner stones of the edifice.—En. Spectator.]
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