Evening Post. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1926. CONFERENCE ECHOES

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 109, 4 November 1926, Page 10

Evening Post. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1926. CONFERENCE ECHOES

"Conferences," says Mr; Archibald Hurd in an article in the "Fortnightly Review," "are becoming the bane of our civilisation. We have acquired the conference habit." The procedure, which he declares to be familiar in Great Britain, ia not unknown in New Zealand. A number of people are assembled at an appropriate place, "if possible, an. attractive city, a spa, or other health resort." Dunedin, for instance, was the choice in this country while it had an Exhibition on. Usually the persons conferring are already of one mind, and have therefore no difficulty in passing unanimous resolutions for the purpose of bringing pressure to bear upon the Government or of educating public opinion, or of combining both these objects. There are, however, some exceptions to this rule of unanimity, There are other conferences, says Mr. Hurd, -wliei-0 differences of opinion arise. In that case the procedure is to find a "formula," and then to draft a resolution which will express it, and everyone goes home happy, having conceded little or nothing. Yes, this kind of conference also is familiar. But the quest for a formula which will save the faces of both parties by seeming to effect.an agreement while deliberately dodging the real root of the trouble is not confined to the assemblies of agitators or busybodies which Mr. Hurd has in view. It has been frequently exhibited in conferences held under official auspices for the settlement of industrial or international differences. "Diplomacy by Conference" became, as Sir Maurice Hankey has pointed out, an essential part of the Allies' machinery in the Great "War, and it may be doubted whether Mr. Lloyd George's agility was ever displayed to better advantage than in the devising of a formula which would enable either an international or an industrial dispute to be gmoothed over with the semblance of peace. But, though the title of. Mr. , Hurd's article is "The Imperial Conference: Words or Acts V\ he expressly excludes it from the class whose infirmities he attacks. The Imperial Conference belongs, lie says, to quite another and higher order. It is a gathering of practical: men, more or loss verged in affairs, the representatives of the only effective League of Nations which has ever existed. Practical men but idealists of Empire, the members of the Imperial Conference represent the differing needs of their respective States and differing opinions as to the methods by which their common ideals may be best promoted. The purpose of the Imperial Conference, says Mr, Hurd, -should surely be not to gloss over these differences but to drag them into the light of the day, so that they may be examined, with a view to finding a practical mean' between the extremes of such a character as will promote real co-opera-tion to the common ends. .. . Progress is not to be achieved by finding a "formula" and then passing resolutions which will mean little or nothing to the groat constituencies which will be eagerly watching the course of proceedings from day to day. They will look to the Conference, not for words, but for acts having ail obvious bearing upon their own destinies and their own aspirations. It must be confessed that the j great constituencies which have been "eagerly watching" the pro- j ceedings of the Conference have not yet taken much for their pains. It is also possible that by this time their eagerness has waned very seriously. What is the use of straining the eyes when there is nothing to see? Proceedings which might have been a source of education and even inspiration to the whole Empire have come perilously near to being a source of irritation instead through the strictness of the secrecy observed, and it is no paradox to say that this tendency is sometimes strengthened by the meagre and j piecemeal information that is allowed to leak through under the guise of conjecture. All sorts of things are "understood" or "learned," or even "suggested," by "echoes from the Conference rooms," which we may be sure that the Press Association would not report if they were not facts, and which there is not the slightest ground for concealing if they are facts. A good example is afforded by the Locarno Treaty. We were j told last week on the authority of the "Daily News" that though at' the outset of the discussion on foreign affairs it was clear "that several of the Premiers were not fully j informed regarding the Treaty" they were all in its favour at the close. A fact, if it is a fact, so : important and so satisfactory should not have been allowed to rest on the authority of a single newspaper. It should have been j published promptly with the full weight of official authority behind it, and with a full report of the non-confidential part of Sir Austen Chamberlain's argument. If he has really convinced all the Dominion Premiers he has done a great thing, but the still more important triumph of convincing the Dominions themselveß is denied him by the policy of secrecy. Of course the approval of the Locarno Treaty by the Dominion Premiers does not mean that they are all prepared tp support its rati- ,

fication, and we note with regret that Mr. Bruce is said to be "quite convinced that it does not matter whether they signed the Pact or not." No troublesome formula, nothing but the previous question and "taihoa," may be needed if this view is adopted. Biit, as it will be all one either way, we trust tho conclusion will be in favour of all the Dominions openly, honourably, and willingly shouldering an obligation which, on the face of the Locarno Treaty, Britain is at present left to bear alone. The other aspect of the Locarno problem—the devising of a means whereby on every issue of foreign policy the Empire may speak with one voice—is in the able hands of Lord Balfour and his sub-commit-tee, and one cannob reasonably complain of the secrecy in which the proceedings are at present involved. It is here and in Naval Defence that the issues which touch the very foundations of ImI perial unity and security are to be found. We trust that the extraordinary stress which Mr. Bruce is laying on the economic problem does not imply any desire to minimise these fundamental issues, and that even on the economic side he will not entirely overlook Mr. Kurd's question:— Has it oceiTiTed to Dominion statesmen that X', Mother Country is in even greater .iced of help in securing markets than are the Dominions? It is encompassed by the high tariff walls of its immediate neighbours, shutting out goods of other nations, and as the people of the British Isles constitute the largest industrial community in the world, they suffer from this restriction on the freedom of trade more than others. . . If from overseas there comes to us in this overcrowded country of consumers the cry, "You must help us in your markets," we on our pait, constrained by our necessities, can well reply in the samo terms: "You must help us in your markets." Inter-Im-perial trade involves mutual obligations, and it may be mutual sacrifices, in pursuit of the common end.