Evening Post. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1930. UNDECIDED AND ILL-GUIDED

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 132, 2 December 1930, Page 10

Evening Post. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1930. UNDECIDED AND ILL-GUIDED

Thursday's debate in the House of Commons on the Imperial Conference is described by "The Times" as "disappointing and unilluminating." , It was hoped, it says, that the Government spokesmen, would stato more fully what the Imperial Conference had done, and clear up points the summary left obscure. It was also hoped that there would be some account of the Government plans to ensure that the Economic Conference to bo held next year in Ottawa would be move fruitful than the recent London Conference. There was certainly not much illumination .in the debate as summarised in our Official Wireless report, but disappointment is of course a reaction to hope, and we had not supposed that-there was any reasonable ground for hoping anything better. Except on the constitutional side the Conference appeared to have done very little, and as the result of its constitutional labours will be to speed the irresponsibility and the disintegration by which the Imperialism of the Dominion has been blighted since the War we regret that there was any exception at all. But not having supposed that there was anything substantial to be added to what was already known either about the achievements of the" Conference or about the plans of the Government for the Conference to be held at Ottawa next year, we have escaped our contemporary's disappointment. It is unfortunate that the occasion of the debate was a vote of censure moved by the Leader of the Opposition, but it must be admiLted that no formal procedure could possibly have prevented the discussion of the economic work of the Imperial Conference from following party lines. Mr. Baldwin attacked the Government for missing the great economic opportunity presented by the Conference, for "side-tracking" the offer submitted "by the Canadian Prime Minister, and for .having no definite proposals to submit as alternatives. Regarding the second of those points, which was really the gravamen of the charge, Mr. Thomas had a good reply, based on the policy not of his own party but of Mr. Baldwin's. The Government was, he said, being censured for not doing what Mr. Baldwin himself could not have dojie if he had been in office without breaking his pledge against food taxes made at the last election. Under the fervent pressure of the Empire Crusaders Mr. Baldwin's fiscal education /has made considerable advances'since the General Election, but lie still falls far short of sound from their standpoint, and the enthusiastic welcome which he gave to Mr. Bennett's offer in principle, but without committing himself to details, did not please Lord Beaverbrook at all. This is not the first'occasion on which Mr. Baldwin seems to have been pushed forward to try his political opponents by a standard of faith to which he cannot yet fully conform himself. Mr. Thomas had, of course, a stronger defence against Mr. Baldwin's attack than a mere "argumenturn ad hominem." If, he said, any proposals had been made that would have helped British trade and give employment, it would have been the Government's duty to accept them. But they were asked to put a tax on foodstuffs, and'in return Canada was prepared to increase her preference," but not to remove any tax. He expressed deep appreciation of the spirit in which preferences were given by the Dominions, but if reduced to bargains ho was certain that they would have disastrous results. There is a good deal to be said on the last point, to which it is probable that the Dominions have so far paid very little heed. But on the main point, whether they think the argument sound or not, they are bound to accept it as conclusive, since the British Government, within whose exclusive jurisdiction the matter lies, is satisfied with it. We are brought here to the most distressing feature of the Imperial Conference, which is not the deep-seated differences of economic theory and practice which divide the Dominions and the Motherland, but the apparent inability of the Dominions to see that they have no more right to attack her policy of Free .Trade than she has to attack their policy of protection. On the British side the necessary implication of the autonomy which has been granted "to the Dominions is scrupulously recognised, but some of the Dominion representatives seem to be quite unable to see that Britain also has autonomous rights on which they have no right to trespass. There is not one of the Dominion Prime Ministers who does not know better than Britain herself what sort of tariff is good for her, and who does not scruple to tell her so, and to press claims upon her in the interests of his own Dominion which cannot be granted without a revolutionary change in her tariff. Some of these Prime Ministers have even gone so far as to speak' outside the Imperial Conference in support of what is one of the most fiercely contentious issues of Britain's domestic politics. If in this respect the Imperial Con-

ference of 1930 has been a more glaring offender than any of its predecessors, the British Government must take some of the blame. In 1907 the Liberal Government, having won a great victory on Free Trade during the previous year, put the matter quite plainly to the Imperial Conference, and, in the words afterwards used by Mr. ' Churchill, "banged, bolted, and barred the j door" against Imperial preference. ! There was an unnecessary emphasis about these words which suggested animus, but the official negative at the Conference was equally free from extravagance and from ambiguity. On the present occasion, however, a Government just as clearly pledged to Free Trade as the Liberal Government of 1907 set up the unfoiv tunate Mr. vThomas to talk about everything but the one subject that the Dominion delegates wanted to hear about. The impression was inevitably conveyed that the Government was divided in opinion and might yield to pressure, while at the same time the absence of any definite proposals outside the tariff enabled Mr. Bennett to get in first with.the Canadian proposal, and to keep that in the front place throughout the proceedings. Had Mr.. Thomas been allowed to speak- as frankly about food taxes at the beginning of the Conference as he did last week, and to take the first place with the Government's non-fiscal proposals, the friction and the disappointment might have been entirely avoided. The indecision of the British Government and the indiscriminating zest of some Dominion delegales made a- bad mixture.