Evening Post. MONDAY, AUGUST 19, 1918. IMPERIAL CONFERENCE ITS EVOLUTION

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 43, 19 August 1918, Page 6

Evening Post. MONDAY, AUGUST 19, 1918. IMPERIAL CONFERENCE ITS EVOLUTION

Previously to 1907 the- Imperial Conference, which had hitherto been styled the- Colonial Conference, had no definite constitution and met at irregular intervals. The Colonial Conference) of 1897 was an incident of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, and the main business of the Colonial Ministers who attended the Conference of 1902 was to help in the coronation of King Edward, It was not till five years later that the Conference really found itself. Summoned on that occasion on its own merits, and not merely as a subsidiary function to some other of greater interest and importance, the Imperial Conference assumed a name worthy of its new independent and comprehensive status, formed a constitution, and fixed a time-table. The capital resolutio/f of the Conference of 1907 opened as follows: "That it will be to the advantage of the Empire if a Conference, to bo called the Imperial Conference, is held every four years, at which questions of common interest may be discussed and considered as between His Majesty's Government and His Majesty's Governments of the self-governing Dominions bej'ond the seas." Another change for which the resolution provided was of far greater importance than the new name or tho time-table. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom was made the exofficio President of the Conference, and tho Prime Ministers of the self-governing Dominions were made ex-omcio members. Hitherto, with the Secretary of State for the Colonies presiding, and the Dominion Ministers as his guests, the Conference had been little, better than. a departmental committee of the Colonial Office. But the resolution gave it an independent and Imperial status. It became a Conference of all the Prime Ministers of the Empire, with the British Prime Minister in his proper place as chairman.

For once the Imperial Conference met under its new constitution and in accordance with the time-table. This was in 1911, but before the next quadrennium had passed Germany had decided that her hour had come, and the Empire was fighting for its life. Such a time was clearly no time for an Imperial Conference on ordinary lines, and the proposal that the Conference which was due in 1915 should bo held for the special purpose of discussing the terms of peace was dismissed as premature. While fully appreciating the. spirit in which the proposal was made, and the arguments with which it was supported by so high,.an Imperial authority as the Round Table, our own contention was that it was a Council of War rather than a Peace Conference that was needed, and this was the form which the proposal took when it came up again more than eighteen months later. Mr. Lloyd George signalised the formation of his Government in December, 1916, by inviting the Prime Ministers of the Dominions to attend not merely an Imperial War Conference, but " a series of special and continuous meetings of tho War Cabinet in order to consider urgent questions affecting the prosecution of the war." The Dominion Ministers were invited to these meetings not merely in an advisory capacity, but with the full privileges of membership; and with the full approval of the Empire, India, which had established its right on the field of battle- just as clearly as the Dominions, received a similar invitation. Thus it was that on the 19th March, 1917, a body representing the Governments of tho United Kingdom, of the Dominions, and of India, met in London for the first time with power not merely to debate and suggest, but to deal in an executive capacity with the most important business that Imperial statesmanship ever had to face—the prosecution of the greatest of wars. The Empire has been too profoundly concerned with the dramatic fluctuations of the fateful struggle to appreciate the full significance of tho step which was then taken. Before it lias found time to.do so, another series of similar meetings has been held, and one of the conclusions arrived at is such as to challenge the careful attention which the proceedings of the Imperial War Cabinet of 1917 have not received. Before the war the interval of four years between successive meetings of tho Imperial Conference was coming to be regarded as too long. The war is, as we have seen, giving us annual meetings of a body which is not an Imperial debating society, but an Imperial Executive. The Ministers attending the second series of theso meetings have now come to the conclusion that even their yearly fixtures will not be enough. In order to provide for a continuity of deliberation something must .be done to bridge these yearly intervals, and the proposal is that each of tho Dominions shall have a Minister permanently resident in London. The Imperial War Cabinet is to meet periodically with theso Ministers as members, " thus ensuring real continuity of the Imperial Cabinet's work as the Empire's supremo executive authority, and providing a steady channel of communication for information between tho British War Cabinet and the Governments of-the Dominions."

Though this decision is absolute in form, it is really, as bolli Mr. Massey and Sir Joseph Ward are careful to explain, nothing more than a recommendation which it is for each Dominion to accept op reject at its pleasure. But wo may assume that, as we have heard nothing to tho contrary, Now Zealand's representatives have as members of the War Cabinet approved of the proposal, and that what they have approved in

members of the Government and Parliament >of New Zealand. The assent of the other "Dominions may be regarded as assured. Canada lias already a Minister permanently resident m London. South Africa is represented on the inner War Cabinet by General Smuts, whose position, though personal rather than representative, serves also a representative purpose. Australia is evidently prepared to follow the Canadian lead. Newfoundland and New Zealand— the oldest and the youngest respectively of the British colonies which are now autonomous—are alone undecided. We cannot see that New Zealand, in spite of the handicap of distance, can afford to stand out, but it is just as well that she will have to decide the matter for herself, instead of having it settled for her in London by representatives who had never previously given it a word or a thought. The decision should be preceded by careful consideration and full discussion, and decided with an eye not merely to the immediate necessities of the hour, but also to the ultimate solution of the Imperial problem. \ The appointment of a Minister, permanently resident in London will plainly be merely a makeshift, just as the Imperial War Cabinet itself is a makeshift. Both measures are valuable as war expedients, and also as steps towards the fuller representation and the- more definite responsibility which the Dominions must ultimately take. An Imperial Cabinet meeting annually in London, with subordinate Dominion Ministers in occasional attendance during the intervals, is plainly no final solution. The Dominions must consider and define the permanent responsibilities which they are prepared to undertake commensurate with the claims to an effective share in the partnership which they have freely made, and which nobody thinks of repudiating.