Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1922. CONSULTING THE DOMINIONS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XLIII, Issue 9747, 13 December 1922, Page 4

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1922. CONSULTING THE DOMINIONS.

One of the election promises made by Mr Bonar Law "was that efforts would be made in the direction of Empire development. His election manifesto contained proposals concerning Empire trade and Empire Government which are of great importance to the self-governing Dominions. The mid-Victorian school of politicians, who advocated the abandonment of the colonies on the ground that they did not pay, never had any serious following abroad, despite the friction that so often occurred between Downing street and colonial Governments. Among those Governments, if dismemberment of the Empire was seriously considered, it was the subject of regretful fears. Since then the progress of events has dissipated those fears t and the Empire has become, to . quote the well-known naval ) writer, Mr Archibald Hurd, “incurably maritime. 5 5 Emigration, ■ improved methods of communicai tion, and more rapid means of travel, have maintained kinship and fostered 1 understanding. Partnership in .war has welded the Empire in peace. On the constitutional side, the proposed solutions of the Imperial problem have been widely divergent. One suggestion was that colonial representatives should be sent to the British Parliament, but this would be far from satisfactory. Although theoretically an Imperial assembly, acts both for the Empire as a | whole and for the British Isles, that Parliament has the domestic business of the United Kingdom to attend to and already its task is pressing enough without adding to it details connected with the overseas Dominions. In the event of colonial representatives being added, supposing an equitable quota could be agreed upon, they would be numerically uninfluential, and would be caught up. and swallowed in the welter of party struggles. There have been other suggestions, notably

that made by Sir Joseph Ward at the Imperial Conference of 1911, of an additional Parliament, sitting in the Homeland, constituted and elected to deal exclusively with Imperial affairs. But out of these suggestions has come the use of the machinery of the Committee of Imperial -Defence. This advisory body, including the Prime Minister, the Secretaries of State for Foreign Affairs, India, and the Colonies, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the heads of the naval and military departments, was given power to call to its deliberations any experts .of its choice. Through that doorway the Dominions’ representatives entered. The members of the Imperial Conference of 1911 had a secret conclave with it, and since then the committee has found increasing use for the overseas representatives. Responsibility to the British Parliament has been maintained. Out of this expedient the Empire Cabinet grew, in 1918, as an extension of the British Cabinet. Its membership is composed “of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and such o'f his colleagues as deal specially with Imperial affairs, of , the Prime Minister of each of the Dominions, or some specially accredited alternate possessed of equal authority, and of a representative of the Indian people to be appointed by the Government of India,” This may not be the ■ final form of the constitutional union of the Empire, but, as Mr Lloyd George expressed _ it, it provides a way for perfecting the mechanism for continuous consultation about Imperial and foreign affairs between the autonomous nations of the Imperial Commonwealth.