IMPERIAL MATTERS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXII, Issue 47, 24 August 1911, Page 7

IMPERIAL MATTERS.

DECISIONS OF THE CONFERENCE SHIPPING LAWS. THE PROPOSED PARLIAMENT OP DEFENCE. By Telegr»ph.~Pre»B Assoclatlon.-Cepyrlght. (Received August 24, 10.65 a.m.) SYDNEY, This Day. Senator Pearte, Federal Minister of Defence, who has arrived here on hie return from the Imperial Conference and the Corpnation festivities, (states that the Australian delegates did not. support «ir Joseph Ward's resolution at the Conference for greater legislative, powers to deal with British end foreign shipping, because the Federal Constitution, gives full power to deal with navigation. Nothing further wae wanted to * mt }> Bntl f 1 } ««d foreign shipping. Regarding cables, Senator Pearee says the Conference unanimously agreed, in the event of considerable reductions not being effected in the near future, to lay Aft Atlahtic cable. The question of a State-owned cable wjll be considered by a subsidiary conference. Referring to Sir Joseph. Ward* motion, for an Imperial Parliament of Defence, Senator Pearce says is is evident ' that the matter had not been thoroughly thought out. For instance, it was proposed that this Parliament should have power to make peace and war, but that the Dominion Parliaments were to retain control of their armies Thus the body declaring waa? -would have no ttieane to effect its policy. It was also proposed that the United Kingdom ehonld have two hundred members, and thef whole of the Dominions only seventyfive. Such a scheme had no hope of acceptance,