The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE. MONDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1920. IMPERIAL CONFERENCE POSTPONED.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 3593, 4 October 1920, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1920. IMPERIAL CONFERENCE POSTPONED.

With which is incorporated

“The Taihape Post and Waimarino News.”

What is termed the Constitutional • Imperial Conference is not to meet for .another two years. This setting back .is quite understandable in the present troubled and transition stage of- im serial, social and domestic affairs, ■.owing to the lack of questions of a permanent, stable and definite character in the various Dominions. a,s well ' .as in Britain, to profitably discuss The Canadian Government fully explains the desirability for postponement in the contention that it is imperative that all constitutioal proposals be thrashed out publicly before adoption. It is just as imperative that constitutional questions affectng New Zealand and Australia should be settled, and, metre important still, that those problems now having to he faced by British statesmen at the heart of the Empire should be given some stable colouring ■before arranagements and adjustments of the various constitutional policies are sought to be brought into ' satisfactory relationship. The postponement of the Conference is, if nothing else, an unerring indication of political and social restlessness, not ■only in Britain hut throughout the whole world. Some measure of a constitution was givn to the Imperial Conference in a series of resolutions adopted at the 1907 meeting, when It was decided that the meetings should be held every four years. The Conference that met in 1911 was largely employed in considering resolutions in connection with defence It was a preparaton for withstanding : the .threatening storm of German militarism. The Dominions were given representation on the Committee of Imperial Defence; a General Staff for the Service of the Empire was set up, and from these resolutions resulted the visits to this Dominion of Sir lan Hamilton and other military and naval experts. It is acknowledged that the Imperial Conference has rendered the Empire excellent service in the past, but the great war is now over and German militarism is crushed although a terrible war spirit yet pervades every class of society in every civilized country, perhaps least of all in Germany at the present moment. A meeting of Prime Ministers, it is reported, Is to take place, in London, next June for the purpose of evolving constitutional proposals in readiness for discussion by the Conference in 1922. If the deliberations of the Prime Ministers arc fully reported the Dominions will know, after next June, what the constitutional j alterations throughout the Empire foreshadow, but iso much may happen meanwhile that even no accredited prophet could hope to give any tangible indication of what the next two years may bring forth. In View of the South African situation Premier Smuts desifes South African constitutional relationships settled at once. It is obvious that New Zealand constitutional matters are undergoing rapid change; it would indeed be a distinct advantage to this Dominion were it possible to have its constitutonal relations settled now, both internally and with the rest of the Empire. It may, however, ho safely predicted that it will be something more than consideration of judicial appeals, emigration, preferential trade and such like that the 1922 Imperial Conference will be most deeply concerned with, for rife one now knows what even a day may bring forth. The ‘Empire is threatened more seriously from within than from without despite the undeniable fact that liberty an equality is constitutionally more possible than in any other country. The last meeting of the Imperial Conference merely fringed the greatest, the most vital question affecting the preservation of the Empire. It resolved: “That it is advisable in the interests' both of the United Kingdom and His Majesty’s Dominions beyond the Seas that efforts in favour of British manufac-

tured goods and British shipping should be supported as far us practicable. 5 ' It is disappointing to. have experienced the fact that after t-ic adoption of this resolution British shipowners and New Zealand snipowners, with the permission of the New Zealand Government immediately set to and linked up with a shipping combine which is , controlled by other than British people. It has been said by a British newspaper that combine magnates hoodwinked the British Government representatives into the idea that the bringing of all linpire shipping under one control was 'essential in the best interests of all during the war that was then expected. It is learned from leading articles in most responsible British newspapers that it is not practicable for this Dominion to give anythng like block support to cither British industries or British shipping. British shipping owners an’d the beads of British industries are being reproached daily for neglecting the Dominions which helped to win the war, in using British ships to carry the products of Brtish industries to anywhere but to New Zealand. If, as the Imperial Conference suggested in

Its resolution, shipping is an essential, something that must be in maintaining trade relationship with Dominions over Seas, why were such Dominions led Into selling to combines every ship New Zealanders had any interest in? It is positively appalling to hear politically cajoled peope whining about congested meat stores, about inability to acquire what is necessary to pursue successful production, deadened to a realisation that plentiful shipping is the only panacea for the evils affecting them. It may safely be said that with ample shipping the present industrial unrest would never have become so intense and widespread. All the attention of Dominion Governments must be centred on domestic affairs for some time yet to come, and that fact furnishes the necessity for putting back the Imperial Conference meeting until June, 1922. In the meantime it is beyond the power of any man, prophet or politician, to even indicate what questions coming before the - 1922 Conference will demand prior consideration. Should the- meeting of Prime Ministers next June eventuate — : and there is not a true citizen of Empire whose hopes are not affirmative some light will be thrown upon“ “the course of constitutional readjustments that may be deemed necessary to fit people and Dominions into the Em- - 7-- governing machinery of the future.