EMPIRE DEFENCE

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 60, 12 March 1927, Page 10

EMPIRE DEFENCE

SPECIAL DIFFICULTIES

COMMITTEE'S FUNCTION

EARL BALFOUR EXPLAINS

(United Press Association.—Copyright.) (Received 12th March, 2 p.m.)

LONDON, 11th March.

The Karl of Balfour, speaking at the London School of Economics, said that he sympathised with the suggestions for a Ministry of Defence, but it was impossible because it did not provide for the necessary co-operatiou between the nation and the fighting forces. On the contrary, he said, the Committee of Imperial Defence deliberately and implicitly organises every Department of | the Government and every, national activity in war time, and attempts to •oresee the strain on the economic and social system and prepare for it." Britain's exceptional difficulties were increased because the Imperial Constitution could not be worked as rapidly as a single Government owing to the geographical distances and different constitutions of the' Dominions, but the Committee had added a wheel to the machinery of the Imperial Government without injuring or embarrassing Cabinet or Parliament. The Committee also possessed the germ of any change necessary to insure British and Dominion co-operation. Maybe it was' the foundation of something more important to Empire unity than anything yet.