Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 10, 1921. WHAT THE CONFERENCE ACHIEVED

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 35, 10 August 1921, Page 4

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 10, 1921. WHAT THE CONFERENCE ACHIEVED

Mr. Masse'y regards the Imperial Conference of 1921 as "far and ,away the most important gathering of representatives of the Empire that has ever been held." He also describes it as "epoch-making," on the ground that " it has marked the first occasion on "which representatives of the Dominions have joined the Government of the Empire as. a whole." The Conference would well deserve that hackneyed epithet if the .representatives of the Dominions had actually been helping to govern the Empire as members of an Imperial Executive even for a few brief weeks. But as a matter of fact they have not been doing anything of the kind. The,i Conference has not been engaged in executive work, and it is a sheer delusion to call it a Cabinet, as j some high authorities insist "upon doing, or even to speak of its labours as to a large extent those of a Cabinet. Neither for England nor for Ireland,'neither for Canada nor for New Zealand, has the Imperial Conference had the power to arrive at a decision that would bind anybody to anything or involve the exr penditure of a single shilling. Not even with regard to the great com--mon interests of the Empire—the supreme, issues of naval defence and foreign policy—had this Conference any more power than any of its predecessors,to issue a binding decision. It had indeed in this respect less power tha,n its immediate predecessor, which in its association with the inner War Cabinet of the British Government had actually the power to issue from day J;o day decisions which took immediate effect upon.the operations of the war. Not yet have the needs of peace been deemed of sufficient urgency to justify an . analogous procedure. Not only has the Imperial Conference been limited by its consti^u-., tion to the' same advisory functions as its peace-time predecessors, but it has been unable to suggest any method by which this limitation can be removed, and has even gone so far as "to cancel the arrangement proposed bythe Imperial War Conference for arriving at such a method. It was the opinion of the War Conference that " the readjustment of the constitutional relations of the component parts of the Empire" was a question of so much importance "that it should form the ""subject of a special Imperial Conference to be summoned as soon as possible after the cessation of hostilities." When the holding of the Conference of 1921 was first suggested byj Mr. Bonar Law, he said that it was not to be the constitutional Conference proposed by this resolution. Both the Mother Country and the Dominions had been too deeply absorbed in other problems to give much careful thought to the question of constitutional readjustment. This question had therefore to stand over, and the decision of the Conference which concluded its labours last week is that it must stand sine die. Though this " taihoa" policy is disappointing, an Empire which has prospered for so many.years without a formal constitution is not likely to worry very seriously ab6ut the indefinite postponement of' an exceedingly baffling problem. It ■will be rather disposed to find satisfaction in the positive achievements of the Conference. Those

are, beyond question, considerable If we bear ,in mind the general drift of declared opinion in the other Dominions during the two years that elapsed between the signing of the Peace Treaty and the meeting of the Conference, there is good ground for rejoicing that the fears which it inspired have not been realised. The absurd and disastrous idea that the Dominions were converted by the Peace Conference into independent, sovereign States has received no countenance from anything in the published proceedings of the Imperial Conference. How 'much^ took place behind the scenes we do not know. It is not to be supposed that General Smuts has withdrawn the constitutional doctrine which

he so confidently proclaimed in South Africa, and which Canada and even Australia seemed at one time disposed' to support. But the shrewdest and subtlest mind at the Conference has not made the public demonstration in favour of a further loosening of the ties of Empire which had been feared, and unless General Smuts has accepted some of the conclusions of the Conference with / mental reservations which have not been disclosed his Imperialism has proved to be less disintegratory in London than it appeared to be in South Africa.

It is true that no'formal resolu-' tion regarding foreign policy seems to have- been adopted by the Conference, but we ajre told that "a series of important discussions of foreign policy, largely conversational in form, took place," and that these discussions " revealed a unanimous opinion as to the main lines to be followed by. British policy, and a deep conviction that the whole weight of vthe Empire should be concentrated behind a united understanding and common action in foreign affairs." This is a' direct negation of the ideal of separate foreign policies and separate Foreign Offices towards which the Smuts doctrine seemed to be tending. The contention of Mr. Hughes that the Dominions should be represented inside the^Foreign Office, and not by staffs of their, own, is the ideal towards which. we should strive. If the Imperial Conference had done nothing more than check the ominous tendencies to which we have referred, it would have earned the gratitude of the Empire, but it has other solid things to its credit.