DOMINION REPRESENTATION IN WAR CABINET.

Taihape Daily Times, 17 September 1918, Page 3

DOMINION REPRESENTATION IN WAR CABINET.

AN EXPLANATION The Governor-General has been requested to publish a telegram from the Secretary of State for the Colonies, concerning a misapprehension in regard to the nature of the arrangement recently concluded whereby the Prime Ministers of the Dominions have been given the right of direct communication with the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on certain matters. “And it therefore seems desirable to state the exact nature of this arrangement. After preliminary discussion in the recent Imperial War Conference this subject was considered by the Imperial War Cabinet, where, on July 30th, the following resolutions were passed: (1) Prime Ministers iof the Dominions, as members of the Imperial War Cabinet, have the right of direct communication with the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and vice versa; (2) such communications should be confined to questions of Cabinet importance. The Prime Ministers themselves are to be judges of such questions. Telegraphic communications between the Prime Ministers should, as a rule, be conducted through Colonial Office machinery, but this will not exclude adoption of more direct means of communication in exceptional circumstances in order to secure continuity in the work of the Imperial War Cabinet and permanent means of consultation during the war. On more important questions of common interest the Prime Minister of each Dominion has the right to nominate a Cabinet Minister, either as resident or visitor, in London, to represent him at meetings of the Imperial War Cabinet to be held regularly between plenary sessions. It has recently been stated in the overseas Press that dissatisfaction with Colonial Office methods of administration was the chief reason why this question was raised. The discussions at the Imperial Cabinet Conference will shortly be published in a Blue Book, and it will then V seen that this statement is contrary to fact and that the assumption that the attitude of the Dominions in this respect was inspired, by distrust of the Colonial Office was expressly repudiated by the Dominion representatives.”