IMPERIAL CONFERENCE

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8403, 18 April 1907, Page 5

IMPERIAL CONFERENCE

PRESS OPINIONS. Received April 17, 8.47 a.m. LONDON, April 16. The Times, in an article on the Imperial Conference, gives prominence to Mr W. E. Forster's articles, published in the Nineteenth Century in February and March, 1885, relnting to consultation with the colonies and the establishment of a Board of Advice. The Times says that King Edward aptly expresses the hopes with which his subjects and the representatives of the self-governing colonies regard the 'discussion which has begun at the conference. Sir Henry Camp-bell-Bannerman made a favourable impression. There is no apparent sign of his former tendency to ignore the y material links uf the Empire. The Premiers accepted his recognition of the conference as a consultation of the colonial Governments and the Home Government in its various capacities—financial, naval, military, commercial. Regarding preference, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman was brief but not unconciliatory. Both the Home Government and the majority of the colonial Governments, The Times adds, seem to recognise that in the matter of interImperial policy the most feasible path of advance at present is the provision of some continuous means of communication for the purposes of fuller consultation. The Australian proposals'show the direction in which things are moving. The Standard declares that Mr Deakin, in demanding a full report, is not the spokeman of the Commonwealth alone, and publicity is the greatest educating influence. The Daily Mail complains that Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman is administering to the colonial representatives a cold douche. The Daily Chronicle says the conference has made a favourable start, though Sir Henry Campbell-Banner-man would have done better if he had assumed the formal presidency. The Daiiy Telegraph declares that the opening is full of promise. 0 tner newspapers are congratulatory. '