A CONSULTATIVE MEETING

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2423, 31 March 1915, Page 6

A CONSULTATIVE MEETING

COLONIAL OFFICE SHARPLY CRITICISED (Bj Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.) London, March 29. "The Times," in a leading article dealing -with the question of an Imperial Conference, says "Mr. Harcourt's (Secretary of State lor the Colonies) reply that It is not considered desirable to hold a normal meeting of the Imperial Conference in 1915 is calculated to give the maximuni'of gratuitous offence to Australia. Sir. Fisher (Jcedoral Prime Minister) never suggested a normal meeting of the Conference, but urged a consultative meeting with Dominion Ministers in London. The incident affords an amazing instance of the tactless blundering into which Mr. Harcourfc has too often allowed himself to fall in his dealings with Dominion Ministers. The war has revealed with startling clearness the one essential fact that in their relations with Britain the Dominions have no voice in the issues of peace and war. "Our statesmen have tor rears been occupied .in obscuring the fact _by a constant stream of reassuring platitudes. The Dominions have been told that they are masters in their own house, units in a greater unity. So they are. But when the one supreme issue is before the Empire they have no voice, and the decision is made for them. By it they must abide, or sever their membership of the British community. This is a hard saying that cuts like a sword through the soft network of illusions that have been woven to obscure the truth about the limitations of the selfgovernment of the Dominions. "We can only say with Lord Milner that consultation would obviate misunderstanding and grievance. If the Government is blind to this it will not summon Dominion Ministers; if it is not it will ask them to come to London." — "Times" and Sydney "Sun" Services. WHEN PEACE TERMS ARE MADE A VOICE IX THE SETTLEMENT. London, March 29. Mr. Doolette gave a u'olcome luncheon to Mr. I' 1 . W. Young (Commissioner of Crown Lands and Immigration for South Australia), at the Cannon Street Hotel. Eighty guests, including the High Commissioner for the Commonwealth and the Agents-General of Australia, bank- ■ ers, and business men were present. Sir George Reid. in proposing the health of Mr. Young, said the Commonwealth's dispatch of troops was an assurance to all the world that there was no geographical limit to the vigour of our race, that no ocean, no distance, could destroy our loyalty. "Young South Australia was never better able to meet the adverse conditions,, caused by drought than to-day." Tliough the times are bad, our people are good. We realise that the Empire is at stake, and this has prompted all the Governments to proffer every possible assistance in order to ensure victory for the Empire and her allies." He hoped that in the making of peace terms every means would bo taken to consult all parts of the Empiro, so as to preserve the amity of the Motherland and the- outlying parts of the Empire.