THE H.B. TRIBUNE MONDAY, AUGUST 4, 1930 THE IMPERIAL CONFERENCE

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XX, Issue 192, 4 August 1930, Page 4

THE H.B. TRIBUNE MONDAY, AUGUST 4, 1930 THE IMPERIAL CONFERENCE

Our Prime Minister has more than once intimated that he would himself undertake representation of the Dominion at the coming Imperial Conference only if Parliament disposed of the main issues of his party’s policy to enable him to get sway in tame to be in London for its opening. If he still adheres to this decision—and, from what he said in the House last week when submitting the Conference agenda, it looks as if he did—then the chances of his taking his place at tho Conference table do not look very bright. The Conference, so far as we have been advised, is booked to meet on the

last day of September. The latest opportunity of getting there in time will thus be by the mail steamer whose departure from Auckland for Vancouver is listed for the 26th. of this month. This will barely leave him some three weeks in which to get through a fairly big volume of obviously controversial business, including such contentious measures as the new Customs tariff, the general taxation Bill, and the Unemployment Bill. Considering the widespread criticism to which the Government’s proposals on these subjects have already been subjected, it will require a good deal of uncustomary speeding-up to get rid of them by the date mentioned.

This says nothing, of course, about a parliamentary discussion of the matters to be dealt with at tho Conference itself, on which it would certainly be well that he should have some instruction. On this point, it seems a little strange that it was not until last Thursday that we were given any information as to the scope of the Conference agenda, and the Prime Minister then spoke of it as something he had only just received from the British Government. At the same time, we have London newspaper files which report Mr. Thomas, Secretary of State for the Dominions, as speaking, in the House of Commons on 26th. June, of the agenda paper as having been “agreed between all the Governments concerned.” Thus, surely, tho intimati<- so recently communicated to our members can scarcely have been the first received by our own Government. Why the House has not been kept advised on such an important matter it is difficult to understand, unless we may assume that Cabinet has become so flustered by the many problems facing it that this has been overlooked. Perhaps on this ground a Prime Minister so new to office may be pardoned for the neglect, even though it may preclude anything like full preliminary discussion here of matters of vital moment to the future of the Dominion.

With regard to tho matters covered by the agenda, as an nounced by Mr. Forbes, they are quite sufficiently numerous and various to afford entertainment for the Conference over a lengthy session. More particularly is this the case as there are some of them on which considerable difference of opinion has already been expressed. Of these the question of I reciprocal intro-imperial preferences is one that is likely to excite a deal of discussion. From recent press messages received it was to be gathered that the British Prime Minister was bent on excluding this subject from the Conference’s deliberations. However, during the course of the speech to which reference has already been made, Mr. Thomas said explicitly: “Speaking for myself and for the Government, we shall exclude nothing from the consideration of the Conference. We shall object to nothing. We shall discuss everything on its merits, with a single-minded desire to do all that is possible in the interest not only of this country, but also of the Empire as a whole.” This was a very promising statement, and was no doubt made by Mr. Thomas with all sincerity. At the same time, we have to bear in mind that at the Conference parliamentarians will be represented by none but those from the party for the time being in power. This would seem to have become an accepted practice, though Mr. Thomas himself did not agree with it as conducing to the best results. Indeed, he indicated that but for opposition on the part of Dominion Governments the precedents already set in this respect would have been ignored. However the present outcome is that the British Opposition, which is out to initiate a new scheme for the promotion of Imperial economic unity, will have no say at this, Conference. Moreover, the Conference will doubtless be presided over by ths British Prime Minister, who is scarcely to be expected to encourage discussion of proposals which he has already definitely condemned out of hand. Thus it will devolve almost entirely upon oversea representatives favourable to the suggestions advanced by Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Amery to see that they get anything like fair play at the Conference. Have Mr. Forbes and his colleagues formed any definite opinion in the matter? They certainly have not as yet consulted Parliament with regard to it and, as constituting a very definitely minority Government, they must surely realise that this should be done.