EMPIRE INTERESTS THEY ARE BEING ENDANGERED

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 108, 8 May 1913, Page 7

EMPIRE INTERESTS THEY ARE BEING ENDANGERED

ABSENCE Of UNITY IMMEDIATE IMPERIAL CONFERENCE SUGGESTED. By Telegraph.— Press Association,— Copyright. LONDON, 7th May. The Daily Telegraph, in an article, says that the highest Imperial interests are being endangered owing to the increasing absorption of the British Ministers in internal politics. The oversea States are concentrating their attention on defence questions. Their public men are necessarily unfamiliar with technical questions, and this is resulting in individual sections of • the Empire blindly searching for foundations on which to base a policy consistent with their own needs and that permanent co-operation necessary to safeguard the Empire. Even New Zealand is intent on developing a local policy of defence, and is reported to be anxious to retain her gift battleship in Pacific waters. Every discussion of naval problems, the Daily Telegraph says, reveals the absence of unity between the Admiralty and the overseas Dominions. The only remedy is a conference of the whole of the Empire. Instead of dealing with the Canadian Prime Minister, Jlr. Borden, alone, as was the case last summer, ttiere should have be"Bn an Empire conclave. The paper urges the holding of an immediate Imperial Conference.