THE IMPERIAL CONFERENCE.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1145, 5 June 1911, Page 4

THE IMPERIAL CONFERENCE.

It is to be hoped that the New Zealand public, in reading the brief scraps of London press comment that are cabled to us by way of garnishing for the transactions of the Imperial Conference, will remember that practically every one of the London papers is keeping its party spectacles on when looking at the course of events. When tho Morning Post, for example, says that the Government is guiding the Conference into the arena of Imperial defence "almost to the exclusion of other great subjects," it is really fretting over the truce to tariff discussion; the l'all Mall Gazette's disappointment at finding the Conference weak in "initiative" has a like origin. AV'c notice that in some quarters an attempt is being made to represent Sir Joseph Ward as a brave pioneer in bringing forward his Imperial Council proposal, which was so emphatically rejected by his fellow delegates to the Conference. The idea of an Imperial Council, or an Imperial Parliament, of the sort proposed by Sie Joseph Wakd, is a very old one We do not know when-it was first proposed, but-dur-ing the last decade it has been suggested by unnumbered writers. And very naturally, since it is the first scheme that would occur to anybody. It may be worth noting that an eighteenth-century writer, a Mr. Pownall, who had been" a British official in America before the revolution, propounded that the British Isles and their oceanic possessions ought "by policy to be united into a one impcrium in a one centre, where the scat of government is, and ought to be governed from thence by an administration founded on the basis of the whole, and adequate and efficient to the whole." Nobody whose interest in Imperial problems is really vigorous but knows how often the crude and simple idea of Sir Joseph Ward's has been advanced in the past. Sir Joseph Ward may have thought it a new idea, of course; probably he did. Yet even those writers who have speculated upon the advisableness of such a scheme have generally refrained from giving a full support to it, being restrained by their sense of the dangers and difficulties involved. The net result of tho Prime Minister's rash adoption of a plan that thousands of finer minds had examined and cast aside is therefore nil. Perhaps wc ought to say that it was not quite nil, since it led to the delivery of such crushing and powerful expositions of the folly of the rusty scheme. A constant source of pleasure to the residents of Westland is, or used to be, the stranger who would see a lump of glittering mineral lying in tho street, and, fancying it to be gold, and not stopping to reflect that if it had been somebody else would have long since picked it up, would rush off with it to the nearest bank, only to learn that it was mica or pyrites. That is pretty exactly tho position of Sir Joseph Ward. And just as the stranger's "discovery" helped in no way to tho discovery of a new El-' dorado, so the proposal that came before the Conference will not bring us any nearer to finding a new and better* framework for the Empire. AVc must await Mr._ Harcourt's memorandum before being able to realise the new official machinery that is to secure a better exchange of views between the various Governments, but wc trust that full weight will be given to Sir Wilfrid Lavjrier's contention that an Advisory Committee would be cumbrous and unsatisfactory, an opinion that is shared by Mr. Fisher. Great importance is naturally attached to the attendance of the delegates at a special meeting of the Committee of Imperial Defence, at which Sir Edward Grey spok-i on foreign policy. To speak of it, however, as an Imperial Cabinet Council'is surely_ to misuse words altogether. An important door has certainly been opened that cannot be shut on future occasions, but enthusiasm over the benefits of this educative innovation can easily go too far. The London Times, for example, thinks that the Colonial Office should be strengthened by the creating of a special Council to keep the door open and keep something doing all the_ time. The Times also suggests, adopting an idea advanced in the House of Commons by Mr. Crawshay Williams in April last, that each of the overseas Governments should create a Minister for Imperial Affairs. Wo shall lie surprised if either Sir Wilfrid Laurier or Mr._ Fisher will approve of this hasty improvisation. New Zealand will certainly look with a very cold eye upon any such schema.