Has this system of the free Commonwealth, as distinguished from the German principle of a centralized empire organized primarily for war, broken down under the supreme test, as so many of our prophets predicted? On the contrary, it has alone saved South Africa to the empire, besides eliciting unrestricted military aid from each part. Why change it for something diametrically opposed to its spirit, substituting compulsion for liberty, provinces for nation-States? Sir Richard Jebb's sentence, specifying the nature of the Australian influence on foreign policy, seems apt reply to Sir Robert Borden's oft-repeated specification that a share in control of foreign policy should accrue to the Dominions by reason of their participation in or liability to war. This liability really compels them to engage with all their strength, lest they comfort an enemy by abstention, or by confining their armaments to self-defense, which might and would be read as disapproval of Britain's course, if the war were one of magnitude endangering her. A system more powerfully requiring Great Britain to take heed that her quarrel be just, lest she be not thrice armed by approving children, can scarcely be imagined. On this matter I have had the pleasure and benefit, during the last twelve years, of talking with Sir Wilfrid Laurier often. In the quoted Jebb view he agreed closely when I saw him a few days ago. He remarked, with special regard to this article for THE NEW YORK TIMES, that his point of insistence at the Imperial Conferences of 1902, 1907, 1911, and on all proper occasions, has been that local autonomy--that is, complete self-government for each of the Dominions--is not only consistent with British unity but necessary thereto as promoting and conserving that unity. When Mr. Asquith's denial of the practicability of giving the Dominions a direct share in control of Great Britain's foreign policy is considered, the Jebb-Laurier view would appear one to which Sir Robert Borden, cautious statesman, must be led by recognition that potent influence on foreign policy cannot but come to Dominions energetically providing at once for their own defense and for their power to aid Great Britain all along the line.