THE IMPERIAL CONFERENCE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17375, 24 July 1918, Page 4

THE IMPERIAL CONFERENCE.

If we were to judge of the value of the Imperial War Conference by the summary of the proceedings that has been cabled to the dominions, we should be disposed to share the feeling of disappointment, which is said to exist at Home, respecting the outcome. It is, however, sufficiently clear that tho information that we have received concerning the proceedings is not of a character upon which any conclusion, favourable or adverse, as to the results of the conference may fairly bo founded. It has been indicated that a comprehensive agenda has been submitted to the delegates, and it cannot l>e reasonably disputed that the subjects which, as we have learnt, have been discussed have all been of distinct importance. We are, however, left almost completely in the dark upon the highly interesting point of the decisions art which the conference arrived. To some extent the reason for withholding the decisions of the conference will be appreciated. It is not apparent, however, that the publication of tho result of the deliberations of the conference upon certain subjects, such, for example as that, which we take at random, of the proposal for the establishment of an Imperial Court of Appeal, would bo in. any way serviceable to the country's enemies. It is difficult, indeed, to see why tho reports of tho proceedings of tho Conference have not been more ample in so far as tho discussions have not affected issues relating to the war or arising out of the war. But the value of the Conference is in reality to be measured more lamoly by its determination upon questions which have been treated as of a confidential nature, and respecting which wo have heard nothing at ail, than by its decisions upon the subjects which have been mentioned in the summary of the proceedings. The real justification for the iva-embling of tho Conferau.v consisted in tho fact that it was considered by the linperi-1 Government to bo necessary that representatives of tho dominions should be consulted by vith

reference to those very subjects concerning which the decisions of the Conference remain for the- present a sealed book. And because those decisions remain a sealed book, it is certainly premature to suggest that the resxilts of the Conference have been disappointing. If one of the effects of the meeting of statesmen from all parts of the Empire in consultation is to produce a fixed determination on the part of the TmperiaJ Government that Samoa and New Guinea shall not be restored to Germany, that alone would constitute a justification of the Conference.