EMPIRE PARTNERSHIP

Evening Star, Issue 18288, 30 May 1923, Page 5

EMPIRE PARTNERSHIP

PRESENT METHODS OBSOLETE. SUGGESTIONS FOB THE CONFERENCE. Press Association—By Telegraph— Copyright. LONDON, May 29. (Received May 30, at 9.25 a.m.) Tho ‘Round Table,’ in referring to the Imperial Conference, discusses tho defects in t,ho present system of consultation between the dominions and the Mother Country, and asks how it could be made more effective and more real. The writer says: “ Owing to the fact that tho High Commissioners are overburdened with work of a commercial and consular character, and tho Governor-Generals are not specially selected because of their ability to inform tho Colonial Office about political opinion in their dominions, the mechanism for mutual information between the dominions and Great Britain is less effective than that between Britain and foreign countries. The Foreign Office conducts its business in almost total ignorance about the opinion of the dominions.’ The ‘ Round Table 5 considers that a system of Imperial co-operation would work smoothly only if tho Commonwealth of the British Nations adopted a quasidiplomatic system, and men of the, same character as’ Ambassadors were appointed to specialise in political and economic observation, while they were dissociated from controversial politics. Such men could give their Governments knowledge, and if any dominion Government disapproved of any phase of foreign policy it could dissent in time and get the policy modified or the matter ventilated in Parliament. “We would welcome,” says the paper, “increasing activity by the dominion Governments in international affairs, provided that tho machinery for consultation is also perfected. At present Great Britain is left to carry the international burden alone. The Empire prides itself on having led tho world along the road of individual freedom by creating the first commonwealth, where law and government are made amenable to popular centred, Are we going to lead it along tho road to peace by proving that nations can also find freedom in constitutional unity under a reign of law which they themsclve control?”—A. and N.Z. Cable.