EMPIRE AND TREATIES.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18947, 11 March 1927, Page 12

EMPIRE AND TREATIES.

LEAGUE ASKED TO ALTER FORMULA. RESULT OF IMPERIAL CONFERENCE. (BT CABLE—HtESS ASSOCIATION —COPTRIGHT.) IAtSTKALIAX AN* K.Z. CABLE ASSOCIATION GENEVA. March 9. Arising out of the Imperial Conference discussion on the future formula for drawing up British treaties and the extent to v;hich the Dominions would be involved, Sir Austeu Chamberlain, with the concurrence of the Dominions, made a statement requesting the League Council to agree that for constitutional reasons future treaties made under the League's auspices would follow the custom existing prior to the Treaty of Versailles, namely, between the heads of States instead of between States, as at present It is expected that the Council will assent to the request, permitting the Dominions to accept or reject treaties as they desire. Downing street circles state that if the League acquiesces in the proposal, British treaties henceforth will be made by "his Majesty's Government in Great Britain," and his Majesty's Government in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, or the Irish Free State, as the case might be. This is a contradiction of the previous method, whereby it was inferablo that all treaties- or agreements between his Majesty and any other State implied that all the Dominions were bound thereby, unless, as in the case of Locarno, they were specially exempted. Incidentally, it might be pointed out that since the Imperial Conference, Government dispatches from Downing street are headed, "His Majesty's Government- of Great Britain and Northern Ireland." instead of simply "His Majesty's Government," in order to remove any misapprehension in foreigners' minds that the dispatch emanated _ from the Home Government speaking on behalf of the whole Empire. Furthermore, -when dispatches are intended to speak for the whole Empire, they say so specifically.