Manawatu Evening Standard. TUESDAY, JANUARY 6, 1925. THE IMPERIAL CONFERENCE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 1209, 6 January 1925, Page 4

Manawatu Evening Standard. TUESDAY, JANUARY 6, 1925. THE IMPERIAL CONFERENCE.

111 luck oontinues to dog the attempts of the British Government to convene a special meeting of the Imperial Conference. The Mao Donald Government desired in. July to call such a meeting for the purpose of reviewing the highly unsatisfactory ppsition in which the machinery for consultation and representation of the Dominions in regard to foreign affairs was left by the Imperial Conference of 1923. But a sufficient reason for its disappointment in the matter was that the trifling formality of issuing the invitations had been omitted by Mr Thomas.. It was not till after he had made a public announcement of the issue of the invitations that he discovered his mistake. It was a remarkable blunder which caused not a little amusement but had no serious consequences. If the invitations had been issued and accepted for a conference in Ootober, as proposed, it would have been a very awkward arrangement for the MacDonald Government, for that was the month in which they dissolved Parliament and were defeated at the polls. The result of that defeat was, of course, to wipe the proposal off the slate, but the matter is so entirely free of any party character and of such grave Imperial concern that it is reasonable to hope that it will be reopened by the present Government. There are ipdeed good grounds for their taking it more closely to heart than their predecessors had done. The trouble that the MacDonald Government had over the problem was mostly vicarious. The grievance which Mr MacDonald had to discuss at great length with the Canadian Government had arisen in relation to the Lausanne Conference under the first Baldwin Ministry.- Mr Baldwin's second Ministry had not been a month in office before it was told that its drastic action in Egypt had given the Dominions another grievance because they had not been consulted. The case for overhauling the machinery of consultation i& therefore. stronger to-day that it was six months ago when Mr MacDonald and Mr Thomas were proposing to deal with it. But though this subject was mentioned a fortnight ago as one of the things that the British Government desired to discuss with the Dominions, there was nothing to show that it would be among the agenda of the proposed conference in March. Both the official and semi-official statements that have reached us from London make it clear that the Geneva Protocol is the matter on which the British Government desires to take counsel with lb; Dominions, and they seem to imply that this would be the only business

of. the Cbnfewmce. The only serious doubt as to the nature of the business was suggested by Mr Bruce, the Prime Minister of , the Common wealth, in the remarkable statement which we discussed on the 27th nit .—a statement remarkable, as we pointed out, in tone no less than "in substance. ' 'The Federal Ministry is," said Mr 33ruce, "at a.loss to.understand the motive underlying the summons," and he mentioned the proposed reorganisation of the Colonial Office and several other items as "easily adjustable by correspondence or cable exchanges." Next to it 3 undiplomatic brusquerie, the most noteworthy thing about this statement was the omission of any reference to the Protocol. That Mr Bruce should in effect have censured the • British Government for proposing to convene a conference, and should, in support of his censure, have mentioned a number of questions as insufficient to justify the decision, appeared to be strong evidence that, whether these were included in the agenda, or not, the much more important question which he omitted was not. It was odd that all the talk about a Protocol Conference should have come to nothing, but that Mr Bruce should be so ignorant or so unjust as to misrepresent the nature of the British Government's proposal very grossly seemed to be beyond belief. ' It now appears, however, that the action of the British Government has been perfectly proper, reasonable and consistent,- that it has done nothing to lay itself open to the ceiisunes of Mr Bruce and his colleagues; and that, as they we possessed of intelligence above the average, they ought, if they had tried really hard, to have been able to fathom the motives underlying the desire of the British Government that the Empire should, if possible, present a united front to the grave issues prer sented by the Geneva Protocol. The Cable Association's message of the 29th December shows that it was the Protocol and nothing else that the Home Government had in view, and if Mr Bruce failed to discover the fact the likeliest explanation seems to be that he had so much other business of greater importance to attend to that he was unable to read this communication with sufficient oare, This ooncju< sion is confirmed by his belief that it was an invitation to a conference that he had received. The explanation supplied by the Colonial Office shows that no invitations have been issued: "Britain did not propose a conference; it merely sought the Dominions' opinions regarding such a meeting." So far from inviting a snub, the Colonial Office took the very course best calculated to enable the Dominions to speak their minds on its suggestion without embarrassment or friotion.. If Mr Bruce has now discovered that the Colonial Office did the right thing and that he did not, he might just as well say so.

If Downing Street was as Ijeen ia the search for grievances as some of the Dominions we could name, it might find plenty of material putside of Australia. A week after the dispatch of its cablegram to the Dominions not a single one of them had replied. But two pf the Prime Ministers besides Mr Bruce had been graciously pleased to inform the'Press of their inability to go to London in March, and Downing Street learned in this way that its suggestion had been turned down. A later report shows that all the Dominions haye now acknowledged receipt of the Home Government's message and ''undertaken to reply at the earliest moment, but none indicated its intentions regarding the proposed conference." Some Dominion will presently be complaining that Britain has taken sous urgent and necessary step without consulting the Dominions, yet this is the encouragement that she gets when, she does give them the chanw.