EMPIRE RELATIONS.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 May 1921, Page 5

EMPIRE RELATIONS.

STATUS OF THE DOMINIONS. QUESTION OF FOREIGN POLICY. By Telegraph.—Press Assn—Copyright. London, May 5. Mr. Meighen, Premier of Canada, has an article in the Manchester Guardian on the place of the Dominions in the Empire. He says the relations between the constituent parts of the Empire must be based on complete freedom and equality of national status. He admits that it is questionable whether the Dominions have arrived at that status and suggests that it be left for the consideration of the Imperial Constitutional Conference, proposed by the Imperial War Conference in 1917. Participation in that conference would not necessarily mean the erection of new mechanism of government.

Mr. Meighen is afraid that such mechanisms would imply centralisation, Which he refuses to regard seriously, because it is not practised and is directly counter to the principles upon which the Dominions exist. Similarly the participation of the Dominions in foreign policy is a matter of arrangement rather than mechanism. Nevertheless, as the Dominions Occupy different continents an Imperial foreign policy would be unacceptable if it concerned the predominant interests of only one continent.