DOMINION STATUS

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 118, 16 February 1928, Page 9

DOMINION STATUS

QUESTION OF DIPLOMATIC REPRESENTATION EFFECT ON IMPERIAL RELATIONS BY TELEGBAPH.—PBESS ASSOCIATION. Copyright (Rec. February 15, 5.5 p.m.) London, February 14. In proposing the toast of Sir Hugh Denison at the English-speaking Union’? lunch, Major Evelyn Wrench said that it was rather invidious that Australia and New Zealand and South Africa had not the same diplomatic representation at Washington as Canada. He was convinced they would ultimately have their own Ministers. This would not weaken but rather strengthen the Empire. Sir Hugh Denison, replying, said that, if he was in the chairman’s position he would say what he did, “but I am still under an obligation to the Government not to express my views until I have discussed the whole thing with Mr. Bruce, but I can express a pious hope that our position will be materially strengthened as the result of it.” Sir James Connolly, in moving a vote of thanks, did not subscribe to Major Evelyn Wrench’s proposal, but endorsed Admiral Plunkett’s view that after the Imperial Conference it would be a disaster to civilisation if the freedom of the Dominions meant disintegration, without leadership of Britain. REPRESENTATIVE OF FOREIGN OFFICE IN WELLINGTON London, February 14. In the House of Commons, Mr. Leopold Amery, Dominions Secretary, in reply to a question, said that, as a result of the Imperial Conference, and also in accordance with Mr. Coates’s request, Mr. Philip Nicholls, of the Foreign Office, had been appointed Foreign Office representative, permanently attached to Mr. Coates’s Department, in a consultative and informative capacity, but in no sense as representative of His Majesty’s Government.