AUSTRALIA'S LOYALTY.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 769, 18 March 1910, Page 5

AUSTRALIA'S LOYALTY.

AN INSINUATION RESENTED. SPEECH BY SL3 G. BEID. By Telegraph—Presa Association-Copyright. London, March 16. Sir George Beid in concluding his speech at the Eoynl Colonial Institute banquet said he would like to say another thing—namely, that an insinuation that Australia's loyalty was mixed with the fiscal question and depended on the Motherland's answer to these questions —preference and reciprocity—was an unfonnded slander. (Cheers.) Unless any new departure was based on the conviction that it embodied an advantage to, and the strengthening of, the Motherland and Australia alike, Australians would scoru.it. Australia, would not welcome any departure if it was at ths expense of the Motherland. '

The "Times" hopes that Lord Crewe's remark foreshadows the affairs of the Dominions coming under' the immediate cognisance of the Prime Minister.

[Speaking at the banquet Lord Crewe (Secretary of State for the Colonies) said he thought it unlikely that the present arrangements whereby the. Secretary for the Colonies looked after the business connected with the oversea Dominions and the Crown colonies would be permanent. A separation of duties was probable within the near future. The idea of an Imperial Council could best be promoted by taking the oversea Dominions into conference .whenever the interests of _ the Dominions were concerned in any diplomatic problem, and placing the utmost confidence in the statesmen of these Dominions.]