FULL PARTNERS

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 13, 15 July 1918, Page 8

FULL PARTNERS

DOMINIONS AND THE

EMPIRE

RIGHT TO SHAPE FUTURE POLICY

THE FRAMING OF PEACE TERMS.

(UNITED ritES 9 ASSOCIATION.—COPIRIODI.)

(AUSTRALIAN-NEW ZEALAND CABLE ASSOCIATION.) (Received July 15, 1 p.m.')

LONDON, 14th. July,

Mr. Lloyd George, speaking at a dinner given.by the Ministry'of Information to tho Canadian editors, paid a, tribute to Canada's part in the war and the achievements o£ the Canadian soldiers at the front. Since the beginning of the war, he said, Canada had manufactured fifty-five million shells and fortyfive million cartridges. One of the results of the war would be a real change in the character of the British Empire.-

"This is a war," he said, "in which we engaged the Dominions without consulting them, because there was no time to do so. It is true that the Dominions approved our policy of protecting the small States .in Europe. Henceforth you will have the right to bs consulted beforehand. The contributions you have made to enforce our treaties give'*y6u an undeniable right to a voice in fashioning the policy which may commit you. For that reason , the.." Imperial War Cabinet is a reality. There the Dominions' representatives sit ',with the representatives of the British Umpire, to consult and to decide, under absolutely equal conditions. That is making a, great change in the history of the Empire. You must have a voice in the settlement of the; peace conditions. The War Cabinet has discussed the war aims and the conditions on which we are prepared to make peace.. We arrived at an agreement on this subject last year.with the representatives of the Dominions; and we shall reconsider the same problems in the light of the events which have occurred since.

"I have no doubt that hit the course of the next few weeks,. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Newfoundland will determine the conditions under which they are prepared to make peace. Unless I am mistaken we are pretty ■well in agreement. There must be no 'lniggeTmugger' peace. We have wholly lost hundreds of thousands of men, and have had millions maimed. We have not made these sacrifices in order to establish fraud upon the earth. Anything less than a real peace would be to defraud not this generation, but the next; and it would also defraud, humanity.