9

A.—s

impression upon our people is what, in the long run, will determine very largely the attention paid even by public men. What the electors disregard, and cannot be practically invited to regard, tends always to become obscured by more immediate demands. I trust that in this Conference we shall realise that although we have been likened and happily likened to a Cabinet of Cabinets, we differ absolutely from all Cabinets inasmuch as we have not a tittle of executive power; neither legislative nor executive authority is ours; and therefore the strict confidence necessarily observed in Cabinets has no analogical relation to the proceedings here. There are always risks in regard to publicity, and there are some matters in which reticence and private discussions are undoubtedly desirable; but it appears to me that the major part of the subjects for our discussion are not of that kind. Looking at our agenda paper, I observe that those subjects are few, and of those few subjects only some few parts call for secrecy. The great bulk of our deliberations might, as it appears to me, be held in public, or as nearly in public as the sense of this Conference authorises. Of course there are perils in publicity, but the greatest* risk this Conference can run is the risk of being ignored or misunderstood. The more it is now ignored, or its publication postponed, the greater will be the liability to misunderstandings. These, when once they obtain currency, are hard to correct. Especially is this the case when you have to travel half round the globe before you begin the task of correction, and when you undertake that task are subject to the daily demands of local politics, which, as most of us here realise, may easily tend to conceal from constituents the Imperial issues at stake. But, Sir, I do not rise for the purpose of endeavouring to add anything to your address or to criticize it, though your recognition of the value of subsidiary conferences, which would have a more technical and more detailed character, and call for a different class of representation, you have made a pregnant comment. There are many matters of this kind which can be better dealt with by such subsidiary conferences. Some of these matters may be so better dealt with, because such governments as Sir Wilfrid Laurier and myself represent, not being unitary but federal governments, have a limited though very large jurisdiction. There are questions beyond their jurisdiction falling within the control of the local governing bodies — the State Governments in our case; the provincial governments in the case of Canada. On certain particular subjects, such, for instance, as Education — and an educational gathering of some kind is shortly to take place here—our local governments require to be, and ought to be, represented. The further remark made that it is our good fortune on this occasion not to be identified with any exceptional ceremonial is also timely. If it did not sound ungrateful, I could wish that we had not been identified with a London season or with a Session of the Imperial Parliament. If possible, these Conferences should assemble when Ministers of the Imperial Parliament are at leisure,- and when the additional advantage might present itself of our having the public attention of the people of Great Britain to ourselves for a little time rather than come as we do now under the shadow of the great questions which are being debated in both Houses of the British Parliament. This Conference occupies a niche quite large enough for us individually, but too small for the great communities which we represent, especially if their possibilities are to be taken into account. We are not the representatives of to-day, though to-day we claim to speak for them; we are also the representatives of to - morrow, and of the day after tomorrow, of those portions of the British Empire in which the vastest opportunities of expansion, of aggrandisement, and of peaceful development exist, and which in view of those possibilities desire for their own sakes, as well as for yours, to be knit closer together. ' We aspire to the attainment 3—A. 5.

First Day. 15 April 1907,

(Mr. Deakin.)