Evening Post. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1926. "IT IS UNDERSTOOD"

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 107, 2 November 1926, Page 8

Evening Post. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1926. "IT IS UNDERSTOOD"

It is just a fortnight-since the Imperial Conference of 1926 opened in an atmospnere which was officially described as "amazingly good, leaving no doubt that everyone meant business and desired most keenly to get the' maximum results from the Conference." But fortunately the Empire was not-compelled to rely for its knowledge oftthe proceedings upon an official bulletin which was bound to make the most of the good points and to extenuate the others. The admission of the Press'was a guarantee that the good and the bad would be disclosed with an impartiality which would enable its readers to form their own conclusions. In London at least three newspapers must have published a verbatim report, and if the other Dominions have been as well served as New Zealand the Empire as a whole has small need to envy London. Since then it may be stated broadly that the worst-served part of the Empire has no need at all to envy the best-served, for the light of London has gone out, and the Cimmerian darkness of the outposts is no blacker than that ;of the capital. We had a partial preparation for this unhappy- change in an announcement that was made on the opening day.

There will, we were told, be only a morning session of the Conference tomorrow, when Sir Austen Chamberlain will most fully and frankly, and in the strictest secrecy, review foreign affairs. No statement will be made to the Press in this connection.

The loose talk about "open diplomacy" which was actually given a place of. honour in the Fourteen Points propounded by President Wilson and afterwards adopted by the Allies cannot blind any reasonable man to the fact that a full and frank review of the • inner workings of foreign policy could not be safely proclaimed from the housetops. The Imperial Conference cannot possibly be denied the same privilege as a Road Board of going into committee when it thinks fit, and no fitter occasion could be imagined than the unreserved discussion of the Empire's foreign policy. But this inevitable admission does not mean the complete secrecy which has been officially observed regarding Sir Austen Ghamberlqin's statement, and still less that the extension of the same policy to far less intimately confidential matter can be justified. The withholding irom the Press of any information at all about Sir Austen's statement as a change from the procedure followed by the last Imperial Conference, as was clearly pointed out in our -cabled report, and a change in the wrong direction.

This, said the report, marks a departure from the precedent- of 1923, when a summary of Lord Curzon's review was issued, but only after so many deletions, in order not to offend anyone, that the statement, as published, satisfied nobody.

The reasoning seems to us faulty and the result deplorable. There is a remark of Burkes to the effect ihat the unsatisfactory nature of the kind of inquiry pursued in the past is no reason why there should be no inquiry at all. The same logic applies to the matter in question. . That the Conference of 1923 bungled in the summary of Lord Curzon's statement -which it communicated # to the Press is surely no reason why Sir Austen Chamberlain's statement, should be suppressed altogether. . Total suppression would doubtless be better than a verbatim publication, but the literary staff of the Imperial Conference must be inferior in discrimination and literary skill to that of any newspaper of standing if it could not have summarised the account rendered by the Foreign Minister of his stewardship jn a manner which, without violating any confidences or hurting anybody's feelings, would have been full of instruction and stimulus for the peoples of the Empire.

Fortunately, however, for those whose business has been conducted in this fashion the ironbound secrecy which the Conference sought to impose has been-beyond its power to maintain. The closed doors of the Conference have not been hermetically sealed, and under the veil of "it is understood" and "it is learned" a good deal of information has leaked out which it has been useful for the Empire to learn and not injurious for its friends or its enemies to learn at the same fime. It is indeed highly probable that in this respect Australia and New Zealand have been better served than some other parts of the Empire, and it is interesting to recall that it is only in accordance with, precedent if they have been. At the Imperial Conference of 1907 Mr. Deakin had pleaded strongly for publicity, but was overruled. The result was that only the barest outline of Lord Tweedmouth's statement on Naval Defence was officially communicated to the Press, and was unaccompanied by any note at all of the discussion. In Mr. Richard Jebb's (jxeellent book on "The Imperial Conference," which, published fifteen years ago, it is surely time.that it be brought up to date, the sequel is thus desciibed:—■

The naval question happened to be one of exceptional interest'to the people of Australia and New Zealand.

Thanks to sonic sympathetic agency, within or without tho Colonial Office, they alone of tho peoples of the Empire received, in the- course of a day or two, a fairly- complete summary of what had taken place, in accordance with the standing orders of the Conference. This relapse into official reticence need only, perhaps, be so described in order to explain how tho omission arose. The British Government had acquitted itself creditably enough in the naval discussion, and can have had no occasion to fear publicity. It may be conjectured that tho Colonial Office was not carrying out.with any great enthusiasm instructions which were a departure from its ow traditions, and had beoii reluctantly adopted by its official chief at the instigation of the dangerous Australian.

If the Press Agency by which Australia and New. Zealand are so remarkably well aerved has scored no such "scoop" on this occasion, it must certainly be admitted to be doing exceedingly well under very difficult conditions. The long^message which we published yesterday contained a quantity of interesting and valuable information which may safely be presumed to be accurate, and which one cannot imagine any reasonable ground whatever for the official desire of the Conference to suppress. The opening reference to the useful part that history will prove Mr. Bruce to have played may be considered to indicate an ivusfcralian bias and an Australian source, and so does the move specific reference to a service which "it is understood" that he performed. On the other hand, tHe exuberance of metaphor which yokes a "dissonance which is only akin deep" and "rests upon the most slender foundations" with "trailing red herrings across the track of Empire solidarity" suggests a Hibernian inspiration. Whatever its sources we are much indebted for the information supplied under exceptional difficulties, but why should not the record be frank, full, and official?