DOMINION STATUS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 253, 22 September 1933, Page 7

DOMINION STATUS.

SHIPPING LEGISLATION. TORONTO, Sept. 20. At the Commonwealth Relations Conference a jocular definition of the Statute of Westminster came from Professor A. H. Charteris (Australia), who said:—“lt. is Canada’s marriage certificate which makes her an honest woman in the eyes of the United States.” Speaking in a more serious vein, the professor remarked that Canada had always led the way in the matter of Dominion status. The question was not a prominent one in Australia. Uniformity in shipping legislation for Empire countries and the collation of inclusive statistics as between the Dominions was advised by the conference. Shipping statutes would apply only to international ond inter-coast-al aspects of mercantile trade, each Dominion retaining control over its purely domestic shipping questions, but so far Canada is the only Dominion prepared to put such a measure into force. The committee recommended that a committee from various parts of the British Commonwealth be set up to draft a statute acceptable to all. THE EMPIRE’S FUTURE. AIMS OF THE CONFERENCE. The conference at present being conducted in Toronto is one designed to discuss the future of the British Empire as an economic and national entity. In 1929, at the biennial conference of the Institute of Pacific Relations at Tokio, Japan, the leader of the Australian delegation, Hon. F. W. Eggleston, of Melbourne, suggested the holding of a conference of British representatives exclusively and the conference is the outcome of that suggestion. Professor A. H. Charteris, Professor of International Law at the Sydney University, whose talks on “Australia Looks at the World” through the Sydney radio stations have interested many New Zealanders, commented on the conference recently and explained that it was being convened on the invitation of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs and was an unofficial gathering, to which Mr Downie Stewart was leading the New Zealand delegation. “It is hoped that the conference will lead to heart-to-heart talks without reserve between the different British groups,” continued Professor Charteris, “on such subjects as the possibility of forming an Empire foreign policy. Inpendently of the World Economic Conference, an opportunity has arisen through the Toronto Conference to ascertain unofficially what are the real views held in many of the different parts of the British Commonwealth as to the British Empire foreign policy, which discussion will probably throw light on the future of the British Empire as a whole.” Professor Charteris said that if actual war, involving the Empire, could be avoided there was no ground for despairing of the possibility of overcoming the economic difficulties." At any rate, one of the purposes of the conference is to find out by heart-to-heart conversations what, if anything, there is behind the expression, ‘British Commonwealth of Nations,’ a reality which is often obscured in official conferences by expressions used to mask the existence of real doubts as to whether there is any meaning of the expression,” he added. It was thought that that method of approach would result in frankness, since, as no resolutions would be proposed. there would be no need for the “mealy-mouthedness” of official reports. “Those who have attended the official conferences well know the existence of such doubts, referred to, and this conference, it is hoped, will tend to clear the ground.” The professor said there was no single conception to the phrase, “imperial status.” It had as many meanings as there were self-governing Dominions to entertain, them. The factors which conditioned those meanings were racial homogeneity, or its absence, and, secondly, the importance of the need for Imperial defence. At one end of the scale was New Zealand, alike in race, and in need of defence, and at the other, Canada, scarcely homogeneous, and secure from attack by reason of contiguity with America. It was because of that geographical diversity that there were inherent difficulties for co-operation on the Imperial plane, and those difficulties existed whatever the state of the international barometer.