RESOLUTION OF PREMIERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 17853, 6 August 1921, Page 9

RESOLUTION OF PREMIERS.

ESSENTIAL TO SECURITY.

QUESTION OF CO-OPERATION. A. and N.Z- LONDON. Aug. 4.

The Naval Defence resolution passed by the Imperial Conference reads as follows : —"While recognising the necessity for co-operation among the various portions of the Empire to provide such naval defence aa may prove to be essential to security, and while holding that equality with the naval strength of any other Power is the minimum suggested for that purpose, this conference is of opinion that the method and extent of such co-opera-tion are matters for the final determination of the several Parliaments concerned, and any such recommendations thereon should be deferred until after the coming conference on disarmament."

The substance of this resolution has already been communicated, but the text was only disclosed to-day. Commenting on it, Colonel L. C. Ml S. Arr.ery, Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty, said the resolution would be regarded in future years as an important landmark alike in the history of British naval policy and in the development of Imperial co-operation. It dealt, of course, with development in the future, and did not directly affect the policy of the Admiralty in the matter of development.

The Prime Ministers had to keep in view not only that the great problems of naval strategy should be considered by themselves, but the constitutional issues involved in Imperial co-operation and the still wider issues of international relations.