The Lyttelton Times. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1907. THE IMPERIAL COUNCIL.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 14289, 6 February 1907, Page 6

The Lyttelton Times. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1907. THE IMPERIAL COUNCIL.

We are afraid that Sir Joseph Ward expects rather too much from the proposed Council of Advice when lie says that it will prevent -any further blunders by the Imperial Government in its dealings with questions immediately affecting the colonies. So far no one in authority has given us any very clear idea of the shape the Council will take. In the official programme of the Premiers’ Conference, which Sir Joseph is going Home to attend, it is described as -an Imperial Council and the nanio implies that it will have wide jurisdiction and extensive powers; but the most the colonies are looking for is the establishment of a representative body in London to which the Imperial authorities can turn for information and advice. A few years ago it was suggested by one of our prominent public men that the colonies should send representatives to the House of Commons, but it was as obvious then, as it is now, that the outlying portions of the Empire would gain nothing by meddling in this round-about way with Home politics. A colonial member who attempted to address the House whenever he imagined the interests of his constituents were at stake would very soon make himself an intolerable nuisance. The proposal that the High Commissioners and the Agents-General should occupy seats in the House of Lords was just as illusory. These gentlemen are appointed for quite another purpose and are not necessarily representative of public opinion in the colonies. But happily the idea of sending colonial representatives to- the British Legislature has long since been abandoned, if it was ever seriously entertained, and the colonies, with a better appreciation of the needs of the situation, are now concentrating their attention upon the appointment of some advisory body that will not allow the views of the colonies to bo ignored without at least an emphatic protest. The Premier has instanced the cession of Samoa to the Germans .as a blunder that would not have been perpetrated if the Imperial Government had had a Council of Advice at its elbow to point out how gravely the interests of Australia and New Zealand were imperilled by allowing a foreign Power to entrench itself at their very doors and along the lines of their communications with the Mother Country. We do not know that the illustration is a particularly happy one, under -all the circumstances, and we are not very sanguine of the colonies, even with a Council of Advice, being able to exercise a very lively Influence upon the Empire's foreign policy; but there are certainly a great many questions oh which a body of colonial representatives sitting in London could offer the Imperial Government valuable guidance. The Horae authorities seem to blunder rather through ignorance than through delibe* rate disregard for the wishes of the colonies ? and we believe that if they were better informed on colonial questions there would be many fewer misunderstandings. This, we take it, i.s the view which *tho Premier expressed, to his interviewer in Melbourne. He specially referred to the colonies’ attitude towards aliens, and he could have selected no better example of the need for educating the Colonial Office. It appears' to be assumed in Downing Street that the colonies’ objection to coloured immigrants is a development of “tho saltish policy of the labour unions,” of which Sir John Madden was telling the Australian people the other day, and that it lias no connection with their aspirations after racial purity and a better condition, of life. These are misconceptions which could be corrected, if not wholly .removed by a Council of Advice, and in many other directions such a body -as Sir Joseph Ward hag in mind could- render immeasurable '.scr-