DOMINION'S THREAT

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 93, 12 February 1947, Page 5

DOMINION'S THREAT

1921 CONFERENCE AMERICAN STORY The Prime Ministers of Australia, New Zealand and Canada, and two representatives of India at a secret parley at Chequers after the first world war declared that they were prepared to withdraw from the Empire and set up an independent' existence through revolution if necessary. Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, president emeritus of Columbia University, said Mr Lloyd George, who was then Prime Minister, pledging him to secrecy, had disclosed this threat to him in 1921.' Dr. Butler was recommending that Britain' and the United States should set up for their joint occupation zones of Germany a federal Government similar to the British Commonwealth of Nations. He said that the Dominions had secured this form of partnership only after they had threatened to withdraw from the Empire. Dr. Butler said Mr Lloyd George had told him that the Dominions and India desired to be in a position to maintain their devoted loyalty to the Crown and to accept the principles of democracy as worked out by Britain since Magna Carta, but they were not willing to accept the control of the British Parliament and the Foreign Office. Dr. Butler in recommending today that the British Commonwealth type of Government as established by the Statute of Westminster in 1931, should be created in the, British and United States zones of Germany, said this should be done without delay lest other forces prevent 'the establishment-of a federal system.