A.—6,

STATEMENT BY THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DOMINION AFFAIRS. Establishment of Dominions Office. Mr. Amery : The Prime Minister has already referred to the alteration in our machinery here for communication and consultation with our partner Governments in the Empire which has been effected by the creation of a separate Secretaryship of State for Dominion Affairs, and he has asked me to amplify his statement a little in order to make clear both the motives for and the full extent of the change. It is nearly twenty years since Mr. Deakin at the Conference of 1907 drew attention to the profound difference in kind, and not merely in degree, between the dealings of the British Government in relation to the Dominions and its dealings with subordinate colonial Governments whose administration it directly supervised and controlled, and criticized the inappropriateness of existing Colonial Office arrangements by which Dominion and colonial affairs were indiscriminately " jostled together " in the various geographical departments into which the office was then divided. His criticism led at the time to the establishment within the Colonial Office of a separate Dominions Department; but it cannot be said that this arrangement met the Dominions point of. view. At the 1911 Conference New Zealand and South Africa brought forward a specific resolution urging that it was " essential that the Department of the Dominions be separated from that of the Crown Colonies, and that each Department be placed under a separate Permanent Under-Secretary." The British Government rejected the proposal, and the matter was not raised again directly by the Dominions, though I think the discussions on " channels of communication " in 1917 and 1918 gave clear evidence of the feeling that existing arrangements did not correspond to the constitutional position in the Empire or sufficiently recognize either the status or the national sentiment of the Dominions. Meanwhile the case on constitutional and sentimental grounds for a clearer differentiation between Dominion affairs and colonial affairs was reinforced by very practical considerations. Both on the Dominions side and on the colonial side the volume of work had grown out of all recognition, and had become far more than the existing machinery could efficiently cope with. The time had come for a change, and for one of a more far-reaching character than anything contemplated in the resolution of 1911 to which I have just referred. That change has taken the form of the creation of a Secretaryship of State for Dominion Affairs and a Dominions Office entirely separate and distinct from the Secretaryship of State for the Colonies and the Colonial Office. The full extent and significance .of the change has been to some extent obscured by the fact that for reasons of practical convenience the new Dominions Office is still housed in the Colonial Office, and that the two Secretaryships of State are for the time being vested in the same individual. But the union is—if I may use the term —a personal and not an organic union, and there is nothing to preclude the appointment of two separate Ministers to the two offices, or the combination of the Secretaryship of State for Dominion Affairs with some other office than the Colonial Secretaryship. It has, I know, often been suggested that the conduct of the relations of the British Government with the Governments of the Dominions should, as the most important of all functions of the Government, be assigned to the Prime Minister himself. That the Prime Minister should regard Dominion relations as a sphere of government over which his supervision should be peculiarly intimate and continuous is, I think, essential. But that object is, I believe, sufficiently secured by the system under which all the more important communications are addressed as from Prime Minister to Prime Minister, a device which ensures that the subject concerned is not merely dealt with departmentally but comes directly under the personal cognisance of the Prime Minister, and that no action is taken without his personal sanction. On the other hand, I doubt if any one who realizes the immense burden of work thrown upon the Prime Minister of this country under present-day conditions, and the necessity for keeping his hands free from departmental work in order to enable him to supervise all Departments, and in times of domestic or externaf crisis to concentrate his whole attention upon some particular issue, would suggest that the conduct of inter-Imperial affairs could receive either as full or as continuous attention if attached to the Prime Minister's Office as it does if it remains the specific responsibility of one of the Prime Minister's Cabinet colleagues. Opportunities of Personal Visits thereby increased. There is another aspect of the matter that is perhaps worth referring to in this connection. The conduct of inter-Imperial relations is very largely a personal affair, and depends in no small measure on personal contact and mutual understanding. The peculiar value of the Imperial Conference lies, I venture to think, almost as much in the fact that it contributes so greatly to that object as in the particular business which it transacts. But I know well how difficult it is to arrange for frequent meetings of the Conference, and it has always appeared to me desirable that all the travelling for purposes of personal consultation should not have to be done by Dominion statesmen, but that there should be some reciprocity on our side. My hope is that the new organization will not only lead to the more effective conduct of the continuously growing volume of work in the Dominions Office, but will also make it easier for the Dominions Secretary himself to get away in order to keep in closer personal touch with Dominion Governments in the intervals between Conferences, or to send the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State to discuss such matters as schemes of migration and settlement, which are often best dealt with on the spot. Position of Southern Rhodesia. There is one matter which I might mention at this point as falling within the purview of the Dominions Office. Southern Rhodesia is now a self-governing part of the Empire, and, though not a Dominion and as such separately represented at the Imperial Conference, is undoubtedly interested in some of the subjects which we shall be discussing, more particularly on the economic side. After consultation with Sir Charles Coghlan, the Premier of Southern Rhodesia, I am proposing, if it meets with the approval of the Conference, to ask Sir Francis Newton, the High Commissioner for Southern Rhodesia, to assist me in matters where Southern Rhodesia's interests are concerned.

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