THE PREMIERS.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 June 1921, Page 5

THE PREMIERS.

VITAL PROBLEMS. DANGER OF NEGLECT OF EMPIRE. EPOCH-MAKING CONFERENCE. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. Received June 5, 5.5 p.m, London, June 13. Two hundred and eighty guests, including Mr. W. F. Massey and representative Australians and New Zealanders, attended Mi. W M. Hughes’ luncheon at the Hotel Cecil. Lord Novar (formerly Governor-Gen-eral of Australia), proposed the toast of their guest, saying that in these days the Prime Minister stood out in the eyes of democracy as the figurehead of administrative power, but at the sama time he is the whipping boy of the nation. Mr. Hughes enjoyed such a position throughout the recent strenuous years. He (Lord Novar) had an opportunity of judging him during this period and had never seen his courage fail or his spiyit flag.

Mr. Hughes, who was enthusiastically received, said the Dominion representatives had been summoned to discuss matters of most vital importance. The Empire Conference marks a new epoch. They had the War Cabinet, which helped to frame the Versailles Treaty; now, under different circumstances, they were asked to consider Empire defence and foreign policy. Men’s minds were now turned towards domestic problems, which had been intensified by the war, and therefore many think they have not the time to speak of the Empire, and there was a danger that Imperial matters might be neglected. Great industrial questions, such as housing and wages, must be settled one way or another, or they would bring about the destruction of civilisation. Bolshevism had already shown tho world there is no short cut to a terrestrial paradise. Questions of Empire were interwoven with domestic problems. It was no use arguing about employment and wages if there was no manufacture, and no one would manufacture if he was unable to find a market.

Mr. Hughes said the overseas Dominions were great markets for British goods, and he asked if the working men in England thought what would happen if the Dominions sent their products elsewhere. “England,” he added, “must have assured supplies of raw materials, and if this country steps down from its pre-war pedestal of manufacturing greatness, millions of workers will find themselves workless.” In fifty years the Dominions’ population would probably exceed the Old Country's. There was not one domestic problem that had not an Imperial facet, and the foreign policy affected every part of the Empire, as from the womb of foreign policy wars emerged. There was still the sound of war in the Near East, and internecine strife and industrial trouble everywhere, and the very lives of the people depended upon the problems to be discussed at the conference, Cabinet or meeting, whichever name they would give it. Mr. Hughes did not know, therefore, that they would do well to consider Imperial problems concerning these democratic nations. The summoning into council of these countries was an assurance of peace, because their very watchword was peace. Australia realised what she owed the British Navy; the Empire rested on sea power, and on the day that passes the Empire passes. Mr. Hughes declared that the future lay in the closer co-operation of the Empire units without in a thousandth part of a degree diminishing their self-governing powers. “The glory of our constitution” he added, “is elasticity. It has served us greatly, and will serve us for the next hundred years if we don’t meddle with it. Let us go on with our present constitution, which emanates from the genius of the British nation, and which is a triumph of cmimcusense, rather than a bourgeois flight of constitution mongers.”—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn.