THE FINAL MEETING.

Bush Advocate, Volume XXI, Issue 304, 28 June 1909, Page 5

THE FINAL MEETING.

LONDON, yesterday. . The Press Conference closed on Saturday, Lord Usher presiding at the •closing session. He said that thanks to Mr Chamberlain, Sir John Seeley, Lord Rosebery and Mr Cecil Rhodes, the conception of : Empire Day was wholly ■different from that in the seventies. Difficulties began when they passed from belief to' action. The first thing necessary was to move slowly and prudently towards an Imperial Navy. This meant that British officers and sailors all over the ■world should not ■only be willing to fight but be trained ' to fight side by side in the same fleet. The delegates would be wise if they ■•■ limited their consideration to what "was practicable withing "ten years. ' There would thus be clear ground to enable- statesmen to achieve jjractieal measures. The dominions must gain experience themselves. Their true guides were not the Admiralty, but their own officers, who had learned their lessons in their own fleets. The military problem could, be summed upwhereby the personnel and material in three words — a general staff — ■of war would be standardised throughout the Empire. Defence meant, not only the Navy and. Army, - but the organisation in peace of all the resources, financial and other, for the protection of the people. He Tiopefully looked forward to. the time when the Committee of Imperial De- ' fence would be strengthened by the addition of oversea representatives. Lord Charles : Beresford said that the dominant note of all the statesmen addressing the conference had been one of grave anxiety, and that was not expressed without reason. ~ In his opinion, the reason was that they knew, they were not prepared. The / colonial offers to build Dreadnoughts were the severest condemnation possible of "Great Britain's Imperial defence -policy. The overseas nations recognised wh^t Great Brit-' am ought to have recognised earlier, that Great Britain had arrived at the time when it was impossible to maintain the two-power standard without the oversea dominions helping. ■