THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1926. IMPERIAL RELATIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19469, 27 October 1926, Page 12

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1926. IMPERIAL RELATIONS.

Judged by to-day's news, the Imperial Conference is coming to close grips with the questions that are of most vital concern to the Empire. It is doing the business urgently crying to be done. Before the conference assembled there was expressed in many quarters a fear that a great opportunity for facing the main practical problems confronting the Empire might be frittered away in resultless talk. Other gatherings of the kind have left little of a tangible nature to show for their labours. That held in 1923 has been roundly criticised for confining its attention to matters comparatively trivial and leaving no impression save that of junketing and speeches. Might the next one not be equally disappointing to those who know that the conference is the only organ of political unity in the Empire and expect that the summoning of Prime Ministers from the ends of the earth shall lead to more than a little inconsequential chat about affairs 1 This might easily have happened. The very seriousness of some issues might have led to excessive wariness in touching them, even to leaving them alone altogether. However, their urgency has been given frank and practical recognition. The outcome cannot yet be seen. These problems may not have full solution. But they are being faced, and a new and promis ing turn is being given to their discussion by the men best qualified to handle them. Supreme among these pressing problems are the finding of means to enable the Empire to deal as a unit with such matters of common interest as defence and foreign policy, and the devising of concerted action to strengthen the Empire's economic position, both in the development of its various territories and the fronting of foreign competition. In the last resort, these problems are one, as Sir Austen Chamberlain has apparently had no difficulty in showing. There can be no economic strengthening of the Empire without inviolability o its ocean trade-routes, and so the call for industrial and commercial co-operation has in it a demand for co-ordinated action in defence and foreign policy. Conversely, measures of mutual defence and international outlook depend for their efficiency upon economic development.

Realisation of the vital association of these two necessities of the hour has stilled the querulous agitation for increased constitutional independence of which some of the oversea P.-ime Ministers have re cently been spokesmen. It has brought even the most violent of them down to earth. It were perhaps too much to hope that those who have grown fond of the words "nationalism" and "autonomy" will at once and for ever refrain from their use ; but it is evident that they will go back from the conference with a clearer understanding of the difficulties of finding any real meaning in them short of Imperial disruption, and pledged to employ them less airily. The emphasis has been taken from claims to independence, even "within the Empire," to quote the phrase of Mr. Hertzog that is likely to become classic, and has been placed on means to improve methods of Imperial consultation. Less will be heard of the Dominions' desire to be exempt from the implications and influence of the Looarno Pact. They cannot be unaffected, whether or no they approve all or any of its consequent covenants. They were left uncommitted to aid Britain in implementing those in which she is directly concerned. But there is indubit- I able truth in the Morning Post's comment that "as for contracting in or out, it is constitutionally impossible : the liabilities of Locarno, for good or evil, embrace the British Empire." In the event of war, the Dominions could not and would not remain aloof. The Empire has a diplomatic unity, and there is needed an adequate method of consultation, to be perfected during peace in all matters of foreign policy, so that this unity may have practical reality. That tho conference is determined to do something practical to enable the Empire to realise itself, and to become a going concern in a fuller sense than it has ever been, has proof in the setting up of committees to deal in detail with specific questions. It has passed out of the

region of generalities, the region in which its predecessors have often found shelter from awkward situations. If these committees do their work in the spirit of the agreement reached on Imperial solidarity, there will result a praotical programme to be presented to the Governments and Parliaments of every unit of Greater Britain. It is hopefully significant that the work of these committees includes those major questions that have hitherto been regarded as too thorny to handle. The way has been prepared for agreement on methods of consultation, although the precise development to be pursued may not be easily formulated. The purely economic questions are evidently to have very thorough overhaul: in particular, there is a welcome possibility that a fully workable scheme of Empire settlement will be evolved. Altogether considered, the point reached in the business of the conference bids fair to be the starting-place of an adventure in Imperial co-operation more courageous than any yet undertaken.