EMPIRE DEFENCE

Wairarapa Age, 14 March 1927, Page 5

EMPIRE DEFENCE

SPEECH BY EARL BALFOUR. NEED OF CO-OPERATION. PROBLEMS OF CONSTITUTION AND DISTANCE. LONDON. March 11. The Earl of Balfour, speaking at the London School of Economics, said that he sympathised with the suggestions for a Ministry of Defence, but it was impossible because it did not provide

for the necessary co-operation between the nation and the fighting forces. On the contrary, he, said, the Committee of Imperial Defence deliberately and implicitly organises every Department of the Government and every national activity in war time, and attempts to foresee the strain on the economic and social system and prepare for it. Britain’s exceptional difficulties were increased because, the Imperial Constitution could not be worked as rapidly as a single Government owing to the geographical distances and. different constitutions of the Dominions, but the Committee had added a wheel to the machinery of the Imperial Government without injuring or embarrassing Cabinet or Parliament. The Committee also possessed the germ of any change necessary to insure British and Dominion co-operation. Maybe it was the foundation of something more important to Empire unity than anything yet.—(A. and N.Z.).