IMPERIAL RELATIONSHIPS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19965, 6 December 1926, Page 8

IMPERIAL RELATIONSHIPS.

The opinions that have been expressed respecting the significance of the results of the Imperial Conference have been marked by some diversity. Our own conclusion has been that the pronouncement of the Conference on the subject of Imperial relationships leaves the Empire in, very much the position which it occupied before the Conference was held. But this is clearly not the view that is entertained in certain portions of the Empire which have not felt so closely knit to the Mother Country as, for example, our own Dominion. A speech which is instructive on .the point has just been delivered to his constituents by Mr Boos, Minister of Justice in South Africa. Mr Roos has in the .past been identified with the movement for secession in South Africa. He virtually confesses now that his judgment has been revised and altered in consequence of what has been accomplished at the Imperial Conference. “We are absolutely satisfied with the result of the Conference,” he says, speaking for the Nationalist Party. And nothing could well be more definite than his statement: “There will, be no question of the secession of South Africa, no question of Republicanism, and no constitutional question of anykind like those raised in the past. We freely accept what was given freely.’ The relations now existing between South Africa and the British Empire are permanent relations.” In such an utterance a note is struck which is both new and welcome when it is sounded by a member of the. present South African Government. It is one that reinforces the satisfactory assurances which it has been possible to gather from the speeches by General Hertog himself. If the resolutions adopted by the Imperial Conference have not served to present relationships within the Empire in any fresh light, it is not necessary to conclude that it was possible to give expression through them to the trend and tenor of the discussions of which they were the outcome. Those who have taken part in the Conference have testified to the achievement of new results in the way of mutual understanding and in the general recognition of partnership within the Empire. From the Conference there seems to have emerged an Imperial spirit which should be most helpful to the well-being and solidarity of the British Commonwealth.