Evening post. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1913.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 89, 11 October 1913, Page 4

Evening post. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1913.

IMPERIAL DEFENCE ♦' The i personal attention that British Ministers have recently been paying to Canada is a very gratifying sign of the enlargement of their political horizon beyond the confines of the Little England which was once supposed to limit the interest and the usefulness of a Liberal Government. Mr. Churchill's projected visit to the big Dominion has indeed been postponed indefinitely — a result which was rendered inevitable by the deadlock over the naval policy of the Borden Government and by the gross charges of partisanship which had been made against Mr. Churchill and the Admiralty in connection with the advice they had given in the matter. But in August and September the Great Seal was put into commission in order to allow Lord Haldane to go to Canada, and though the primary object of his journey was to address a grgat meeting of the American Bar Association, under the presidency of the Chief Justice of the United States, at Toronto, his visit was of course made to serve other imperial purposes. Close upon the heels of ' the Lord Chancellor has come the PostmasterGeneral. Mr. Herbert Samuel has won a great reputation, both in the administration of his Department and in debate, as an exceptionally industrious, wellinformed, shrewd, and sure-footed man; and it is fresh in the public recollection that though he was the central figure in the Marconi business he alone of the Ministers intimately concerned in it emerged with an uninjured reputation. In a speech at Toronto, Mr. Samuel has handled the subject of Imperial defence with the circumspection that might have been expected. It was not right, he said, that a burden of which all get the benefit should be borne by one pair of shoulders alone. Such a position is indeed, a« the late Mr. Alfred LytteltoD termed it, "unthinkable"} but what help the Dominions are to provide must be left to their free choice. Even a much less cautious British Minister than Mr. Samuel could indeed take no other line than this in the present stage of Imperial evolution. Dictation is, however, one thing and guidance is another, and the question is whether the Government to which Mi 1 . Samuel belongs is giving the oversea States all the guidance that could be derived from consultation and discussion, unhampered by any attempt at dictation or pressure. While Mr. Samuel was discussing Imperial defence in Toronto, Senator Millen was dealing with the same subject in Sydney; and it is highly significant' that the Defence Minister of the one Dominion which has absolutely clear-cut ideas on the subject of naval policy, and is regarded by many staunch Imperialists as displaying quite a dangerous degree of self-reliance, should have declared so strongly for the immediate summoning of an Imperial Conference on defence. If the reported abandonment by the British Government of tho proposed conference were officially confirmed, it would, says the Defence Minister of the Commonwealth, provide some justification for deep regret. Official confirmation is, it is to be feared, inevitable, for the Ulster problem alone would prevent the British Government from undertaking at the present time any additional responsibilities that could possibly be postponed. Accepting this consideration as coiiclusive, The Times strongly urges the holding of a Pacific Defence Conference. This idea has been mooted before, and Ottawa or Vancouver suggested as the place of meeting. The proposal is in itself an admirable one, but Britain is still the dominant partner in the Pacific, just as 6he is everywhere else, and a conference without a British Minister would be short of its most imuorttmt member, Tho matter ehould,

however, bo k©pt in view in the hope that the idea may be realised early next, year. A general conference on defence within a year of the next ordinary meeting of the Imperial Conference would doubtless be regarded as Coo much like a duplication of work and expense. But a conference limited to Pacific defence and sitting within the next six months on or near the Pacific might well be possible. Much dealing of the air Way well have taken place by the end of the present year. Some escape from the Uleler impasse otherwise than by civil war will surely hay« been devised by that time; the wearisome " taihoa " of the New Zealand Government regarding naval policy can hardly have failed to reach at least a provisional terminus; and even Canada may be seeing daylight through the clouds of party warfare which have for nearly a year involved the great programme of the Borden Government, tho most dubious item is the last, but with regard to this it must be remembered that Canadian parties are fortunately not yet at loggerheads about the Pacific. In form, at any rate, the issue between Mr. Borden and Sir Wilfrid LaUrier is as to whether there is a sufficient einer gency to justify tho immediate Construction of three Dreadnoughts for use in European waters. Afl to the permanent policy of the future, both leaders express a general adherence to the lines of selfreliant nationalism which the Commonwealth has pioneered. Ab everybody ia anxious lo see a great increase of the Empire's naval strength in the Pacific, and nobody desires that it shall take the form of three or four practically independent and uncoordinated squadrons, the holding of a conference to define che responsibilities and the methods of cooperation is a thing devoutly to be ■wished. „