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there may have been some " lag " in this process of readjustment, but the greater frequency of these Conferences has in recent years provided some safeguard against this. We have gradually built up a whole network of contacts, extending throughout the entire fabric of our respective national organizations, official and unofficial. If we examine the matter we shall find that this network extends from the Crown which unites all by a common bond, through the whole range of government activities, justice, foreign policy, defence, finance, trade, communications, migration, education, and so forth, and is completed by a thousand social links—of race, religion, language, science, literature, drama, sport. From these we derive those common ideals, interests, and mutual sympathies which put us as a group of nations in a family apart, whose several members stand in a relation to each other differing in kind as well as in degree from that in which each stands towards the nations outside the family. Developments as affecting Foreign Policy. Nowhere has the necessity for adjusting the relations between the Governments of the Empirebeen more conspicuous than in the region of foreign policy. In this sphere I would recall to you the meeting of the Imperial Conference of 1911, when Sir Edward Grey (now Lord Grey) for the first time made, at the Committee of Imperial Defence, a comprehensive statement on foreign policy to the representatives of the Dominions assembled that year. His opening sentences are of such interest that I should like to quote them to-day : — " The starting-point, I imagine," he said, " of the consultation which we are now going to have on foreign policy and the foreign situation is really the creation and growing strength of separate fleets and forces in the Dominions, of which the Prime Minister has just given some account. It is possible to have separate fleets in a united Empire, but it is not possible to have separate fleets in a united Empire without having a common foreign policy which shall determine the action of the different forces maintained in different parts of the Empire. If the action of the forces in different parts of the Empire is determined by divergent views of foreign policy, it is obvious that there cannot be union, and that the Empire would not consent to share an unlimited liability the risks of which it cannot gauge, because this liability would be imposed upon it by different parts of the Empire having different policies. Therefore, the first point I want to make is this : that the creation of separate fleets has made it essential that the foreign policy of the Empire should be a common policy. If it is to be a common policy, it is obviously one on which the Dominions must be taken into consultation, which they must know, which they must understand, and which they must approve ; and it is in the hope and belief that the foreign policy of this country does command the assent and the approval, and is so reasonable that it must command the assent and approval, of the Dominions, that we wish to have a consultation, and I wish to explain, as fully as I can, the present situation of foreign affairs, and what our views and prospects are." Progress since 1911. You will note Sir Edward Grey's reference to the " foreign policy of this country." The change that has taken place since then is aptly illustrated by the fact that it is now by universal admission no longer only a question of the foreign policy of this country. The problem before us is how to reconcile the principle of self-government in external as well as domestic affairs with the necessity for a policy in foreign affairs of general Imperial concern which will commend itself to a number of different Governments and Parliaments. That problem we have already gone some way to meet. The first conspicuous demonstration of the changes which had taken place in the sphere of foreign affairs was the Imperial War Cabinet of 1917. This was followed by the Imperial War Cabinet of the following year and the Empire Delegation at the Peace Conference. In the seven years that have since elapsed there have been (including the present Conference) three sessions of the Imperial Conference. At the last two Conferences not only has a common understanding been arrived at as regards the principles which should govern the main issues of foreign policy, but also agreements have been reached on what I may term the administrative side of foreign relations in matters of major importance. I need only refer to the part played by the Conference of 1921 in the discussion which preceded the Washington Disarmament Conference and to the work of the Conference of 1923, first, on the problem of reparations, which led up to the agreements reached in 1924, and, secondly, on the question of smuggling off the United States coast, which resulted in the conclusion of the Treaty for the Regulation of the Liquor Traffic. Apart from meetings of the Imperial Conference, there have been a number of International Conferences since the war, at which the Dominions have been represented and have played an important part, in addition to the periodical meetings of the Assembly of the League of Nations at Geneva, where there has invariably been close and constant touch between our respective representatives. Present System for Diffusion of Information. Side by side with the increase in the opportunities for interchange of views afforded by personal contact at such Conferences has gone a continuous increase in the diffusion of information. You will remember that, following on the promise made by Lord Curzon at the Conference of 1921, copies of all communications of importance to and from His Majesty's representatives abroad bearing on current aspects of world politics and on the conduct of foreign affairs are now sent without delay from London to the Prime Ministers of the Dominions, and day by day they are kept informed by telegram and despatch of every important development and tendency. I find that during 1925 the number of such telegrams sent was 190, while during the present year the number sent up to the end of September has been 116. The numbers of confidential Foreign Office prints sent during the same

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