»4 
LAND & W A T E R 
May 18, 1916 
Renascence or Decay 
By Joseph Thorp 
ENASCENCE or Decay" might very well 
stand against the Prussian \Vcltmacht odcr 
Niedergang as the summary of the choice of 
.destinies which he before that pohtical system 
known as the British Empire. Nor is the reference to 
defeat or victory in the held, but to the elements of decay 
or of regeneration in the constitutional structure and the 
temper and conditions of the various racial and national 
elements. The problem is older and wider than the 
war, though that catastrophe has defined it and imported 
a note of urgency into it as into so many others. 
" Renascence or Decay " might also ser\'e as the 
summary of the thesis argued in Tlic Problem oj the 
C ommomvcallh (Macmillan) which is in effect the result 
of the studies and deliberations of that group of students 
of political affairs which founded and has conducted The 
Round Tab'c with such marked ability, detachment and 
perceptible effect. The book is indeed, for reasons duly 
explained, put forward in the name of but one of their 
number, Mr. Lionel Curtis, but it has the breadth and 
authority of its composite authorship. 
Readers of The Round Table will have noted in that 
admirable quarterly, the persistent use of the term 
" Commonwealth " to replace the more familiar " Empire." 
It is the peculiar service of this school to their generation 
that they have set forth their problem in terms of free 
citizenship, resiKinsibility and mutual service rather 
than dominion. The change of terms reflects the change 
of thought — and the changed thing. 
For there is a world of difference in the two conceptions. 
The highest claim of the association of nations now 
imder the British flag (for the moment prescinding from 
the claims and causes of our Allies and referring especially 
to the envious German challenge of the British position) 
is not the claim of possession. It is the fact that out of 
the conception and practice of liberty under that flag 
there is hke to spring a better hope for mankind than out 
of the domineering projects and methods of Deutschtum. 
That dear hope is a greater thing for us to fight for than 
any barren desire to keep by the sword what was won 
by the sword of our fathers. 
What then is this Problem of the Commonwealth ? 
The admirably argued thesis before me confines itself 
to a single, but immensely important, aspect of a manifold 
problem. How can a way be found whereby " a British 
citizen in the Dominions can acquire the sarne control of 
foreign policy as one domiciled in the British Isles." 
Of many utterances of Dominion statesmen expressing 
dissatisfaction with the present situation this* of Mr. 
Andrew Fisher sets out the matter in its simplest and 
bluntest terms. " If I had stayed in Scotland, I should 
have been able to tackle any member on questions of 
Imperial policy and to vote for or against him on that 
ground. I went to Australia. I have been Prime 
Minister. But all the time I have had no say whatever 
about Imperial policy — no say whatever. Now that can't 
go on. There must be some change." 
But what change ? Mr. Curtis addresses himself to 
the -answering of that question, and it must be admitted 
that if his closely reasoned and lucidly phrased argument 
be followed step by step it is difficult to resist the con- 
clusion that nothing less than a fundamental constitutional 
change, the establishment of a new Imperial executive — 
" one Cabinet responsible to an Imperial Parliament and 
electorate and another to a British Parliament and 
electorate "—rather than any development of the 
method of Imperial conference, will serve to prevent 
disintegration, to consolidate, to develop the greater 
Commonwealth. This conclusion is approached, step 
by careful step, via a consideration of the growth of 
self-government in England, in America, and in the 
British Colonies — now the Dominions. It is shown 
how the range of authority covered by the term self- 
government has been constantly extended, but in the 
case of the Dominions, stops arbitrarily short of the 
highest function of self-government — the responsibility for 
national defence, the determination of the high issues of 
peace and war. An open-eyed discussion of the difficulties 
involved and a very careful attention to authentic 
definitions makes for tlie clear understanding of this 
absorbing problem. 
It is well to. try and express the problem for ourselves 
in the concrete. We want such a democratically moulded 
and acceptable union of nations in one Sovereign State 
as will create a greater loyalty to the Commonwealth — 
over and above the sectional loyalties to the separate 
parts : so that an Englishman or New Zealander will be 
first a Commonwealth man then an Englishman or New 
Zealander ; as now both Enghshman and Scot are 
essentially British before they are Scotch and English. 
The statement wears the appearance of being the very 
reverse of the truth. But the test lies not in the apparent 
strength of the affections which are most often more 
warmly engaged with the nearest entity, home, city or 
native land, but in the great choices made in crisis. The 
Scot would stand for Britain and the Empire as against 
a separatist Scotch party. 
When Lee, the Virginian, chose for Virginia as against 
the I'nited States, he chose wrong. He had not under- 
stood the terms of his allegiance. Hyphenation is 
raising the same problem again in America to-day. To 
create such a federation of British States with equal 
rights and ccpial share of control as shall win and retain 
the loyalty of all- that is our task as the author sees it. 
It cannot be done without vision, without labour, without 
the sacrifice of many preconceived ideas and the abandon- 
ment of ^ a dangerous complacency as to the sanctity of 
the British constitution. This candid, serious, lucid, 
and generous-tempered piece of political thinking will 
carry weight in the discussions that must precede effective 
movement towards the final issues of self-government, 
and the completion of the Commonwealth. 
To our author and those for whom he speaks, "Freedom' 
is no vague shibboleth. It is a term with definite content 
and implications. It is wrought by constant human 
andeavour in the light of experience often bitter : 
"What has been has been, and God Himself cannot change 
the past. But the future is all in human hands to make 
or to mar, so far as with mortal eyes we are able to discern 
what time will bring forth. . . . When freedom is saved 
we may fail to sec that the world has been changed in 
the process, and that the Commonwealth, with which 
the cause of liberty is inseparably linked, cannot continue 
to be as it was. Changed it must be, and woe betide us 
if those changes are not conceived in accordance with 
the principle for which the Commonwealth stands. 
Of all our Allies, Japan is the one of which least is known. 
There are histories in existence familiar to historians and 
students, but the general reader is not aware that Japan has 
lived through heroic times, and maintained her freedom by 
bravery and resolution in the "face of supreme dangers. Lord 
Armstrong rightly draws attention to this in his introduction 
to Mr. Yamada's story of the Great Mongol Invasion in the 
reign of Kubla Khan at the cud oi the thirteenth century. 
In Japan this invasion is called Ghenko or Genko. and Mr. 
Yamada has called his very able and admirable book Ghenko, 
(Smith Elder and Co. 7s. Od. net.) 
This invasion bears a curious similarity in many points to 
the Great Armada, and the author (who by the way is a 
Cambridge graduate) tells the historic story in'a most tlirilling 
manner. If is a chapter of history with which we ought 
all to be familiar, for it casts a strong light on the Japanese 
character and makes clearer that division which so often 
bewilders the casual student— the cleavage that exists behind 
the peoples of China and Japan. A sidelight is also thrown 
on Korea, in fact after a perusal of this volume one is able to 
take a much better view of the Far East. The book is written 
in rather quaint F^nglish, for the author, though he has 
mastered most of the intricacies of our language, at times 
goes astray over the connotation which colloquialisms have 
given to certain phrases ; but this does not detract from 
the general interest ; some may think it even heightens it. 
Lord Armstrong observes, " change the names and the seat 
of war and much of Mr. Yamada's story might well apply to 
the great struggle now taking place in Europe." The c.vtra- 
ordinary likeness 'between German and Mongol sense of 
honour arid frightfulncss is especially remarkable. 
