EMPIRE’S FOREIGN POLICY

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 166, 9 April 1921, Page 7

EMPIRE’S FOREIGN POLICY

VOICE OF DOMINIONS MUST BE UNDERSTANDING WITH AMERICA AND FRANCE ESSENTIAL (By Telwaph-Presi ABHocteUon-Oopyrlirht Melbourne, April 8. In. the House of Representatives, Mr. W._ M. Hughes, in a speech on foreign policy and the Imperial Conference, said there could, be no Empire under a Republican Government. The. ’ future peace of the world depended on. some understanding between America, England, and France. “In securing the friendship of Japan we cannot make an enemy of America. The Dominions should have a voice in the Empire’s foreign policy, but they could not accept tho Anglo-Japanese policy if it involved sacrifices. The treaty will not be worth anything if the British Navy sinks to the level of a fleet of a secondrate Power. The Commonwealth Parliament lat Ithe Imperial Conference would, not be committed to a penny of expenditure over the naval scheme, which would be brought before Parliament and rejected or accepted. For Australia there was no alternative to participation in the scheme of Imperial naval defence in the interests of "Australia. It was important that the Japanese Treaty should be renewed in some modified form acceptable to Britain, America, and Japan. There ■ would be no discussion on constitutional matters at the June Conference; the conference next year would deal with that. He declared that hope for the future peace of the world seemed to be some understanding between America, England, and France. The League of Nations was an unwieldy and clumsy contrivance. There was only one way to prevent war, and that was that the world should turn its back upon it.—-Press Assn.