THE GOVERNOR ON THE CONFERENCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13494, 22 May 1907, Page 6

THE GOVERNOR ON THE CONFERENCE.

His Excellency Lord Plunket, speaking at Gisborhe yesterday, referred to the Imperial Conference in terms with which we can all cordially agree. He expressed his opinion that, although many important subjects have beep left unsettled, "the free discussion of vital,topics must have advanced by several stages the reorganisation of the Empire to suit modern needs. This may be accepted as the general conclusion of thoughtful and loyal colonists, who recognise with His Excellency that progress towards Imperial unity can only be very gradual, and that full and. free discussion between representative '■• men from the various British States of the world is the essential thing towards the ■ removal of the misunderstandings and misconceptions that keep them apart. Mr. Winston Churchill, '■■ Under-Sec-retary of State for the * Colonies, has opposed: this "free discussion of vital topics" from the beginning and has bitterly criticised at the close. With the stupidity which has been long associated with Colonial Office' officials he has been proclaiming to English audiences that our Colonial Premiers, merely because they were the guests .of the British Government, had no right to speak frankly is in .the colonial mind.

The suggestion* that English hospitality is thus conditioned is. too preposterous to need comment, and we only refer, to' it to show the confusion of the Little Englanders and the necessity for removing the Imperial business of the self-governing States of the Empire from the Colonial Office ,as it has been hitherto constituted. For the real difficulty, with men like Mr. Winston Churchill, is that they are unable to comprehend that the colonial Englishman is in every respect the peer and equal of the home-staying Englishman, and is not to be mixed up with the Hottentot or the Hindoo. It is because the British States are aIL equally interested in strengthening and simplifying the bonds' between them that our Premiers have the right to say, in. a colony or in the United Kingdom, what they think is the best policy for our mutual adoption. This makes the value of " free discussion on vital topics," without which Imperial Conferences • would be empty pageantries.