IMPERIAL CONFERENCE

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 248, 14 July 1921, Page 5

IMPERIAL CONFERENCE

PROCEEDINGS KEPT SECRET MR. MASSEY URGING FASTER PROGRESS By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright (Rec. July 12, 8.15 p.m./ London, July 11. The Imperial Conference delegates are occupied fully except at week-ends. The long daily sitting has prevented any serious attention to speeches and public functions, which it is sometimes oven impossible to attend. The proceedings of the Conference are kept a close secret in London, so the Prime Ministers are not getting their usual publicity. Mr. Massey has stopped making speeches at dinners on account of stress of work. Mr. Hughes is improvising, and adapting old matter, consequently his addresses are colourless and unarresting. The Conference will probably go on record as the most continuous and longest session. The tension will last till July 25, when Mr. Meigh.cn will depart. The Conference will then continue to discuss minor matters, and the delegates will have more time to do themselves justice in public. It is wrong to say that interest is lacking, as the newspapers display tho crumbs of information leaking out. Mr. Massey and Mr. Hughes both intend to be home "by October 7. _ In spite of tho continuity of the Conference only preliminaries have been discussed vet. Mr. Massey says it is worth considering whether the Conference ought not to sit in the evenings. I don’t want.” ho says, "to go back to New Zealand and tell them we have done practically nothing. I want to be able to tell them we have done something for tho benefit of the whole Empire." Mr. Hughes, also, is fretting and impatient at the time -wasted, but tho Australasian representatives are not responsible for tho delay.—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn. DISCUSSION ON FOREIGN RELATIONS MR. MEIGHEN AND MR. HUGHES TAKE OPPOSITE SIDES. (Rec. July 13, 1.5 a.m.) London, July 11. President Harding’s invitation and Mr. Lloyd George's reply overshadowed the proceedings!' at the Conference of Premiers. The discussion on foreign relations was continued, Mr. Meighen am] Mr. Hughes taking opposite sides. Mr. Hughes took exception to Mr. Meighen s veiled suggestion that Canada would judge the rights of a quarrel before rallying to help the Motherland. Mr. Hughes replied that Mr. Meighen’s attitude was exactly correct and academic. Australia expected nothing from Canada and South Africa, nor did they expect anything from Australia. That was quite right. But they owed all to England and the Empire. The Dominions hud tho rame rights as a son coming of age. Similarly a father could legally turn his son’ adrift at eighteen, but what a poor world it would be if every son and every father exercised his rights to tho letter of the law. _ Tho world was not satisfied with that kind of thing. It would never do in family life or in the family of the Empire.—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn. DELEGATES BY THE HEAT WEEK-END SPENT AT THE CHEQUERS. (Rec. July 12, 11.35 p.m.) London, July 11. Tho Indian delegates and the Premiers, except General Smuts, spent the weekend nt The Chequers. All complain of the heat, which reached 92 degrees in the shade, the highest for forty years. Several ladies are affected by it. The party has visited historical places, including Penn's birthplace. Milton's cottage, and Hampden’s house, and inspected the documentary protest against ship-money.— Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn. [Ship-money was a tax imposed by Charles I in 163-1, first on the maritime counties, but later on the whole Kingdom, ostensibly to protect the country from the incursions of -Algerian pirates and from Dutch aggression hut in reality to provide himself with funds without having recourse to Parliament. was in resisting this tax that Hampden first became prominent. The House of Commons in 1611 declared the tax illegal.]