A.—4.

46

2nd Day.] Imperial Council. [25 May, 1911. There were also present : Lord Lucas, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies; Sir Francis Hopwood, G.C.M.G., X.C.8., Permanent Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies; Sir C. P. Lucas, K.C.M.G., C.8., Assistant Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies; Rear-Admiral Sir Charles Ottley, K.C.M.G., M.V.0., Secretary to the Committee of Imperial Defence; Mr. Atlee A. Hunt, C.M.G., Secretary to the Department of External Affairs, Commonwealth of Australia; Commander S. A. Pethebridge, Secretary to the Department of Defence, Commonwealth of Australia; Mr. J. R. Leisk, Secretary for Finance, Union of South Africa; and Private Secretaries to the Members of the Conference.

Imperial Council. " That the Empire has now reached a stage of Imperial development which renders it expedient that there should be an Imperial Council of State, with Representatives from all the self-governing parts of the Empire, in theory and in fact advisory to the Imperial Government on all questions affecting the interests of His Majesty's Dominions oversea." The PRESIDENT : Will you resume your remarks now, Sir Joseph ? Sir JOSEPH WARD : Mr. Asquith, the adjournment on Tuesday interrupted the introductory remarks which I felt it necessary to submit in explanation and justification of the more definite proposals that I intend to make. I would like to summarise what I have already said. I have endeavoured to impress upon the Conference the enormous changes in the relationship between the self-governing oversea Dominions and the Mother Country, which have been conseqiient upon the rapid growth and the extension of the Dominions; and in this connection I also impress the obvious fact that the rapidity of that growth and extension, already seen, will continue at an even accelerated speed in the future, These changes, I submit, demand a change in the Imperial relationship heretofore existing between the United Kingdom and her self-governing dependencies. The people of these dependencies are not yet citizens of the Empire. This full franchise as yet has not been conferred, and the whole question is—is not the time now ripe for the consideration of conferring it 1 The question becomes urgent and emphatic when we remember that at least two of the greatest of these Dominions have in some measure already embarked upon a naval policy of their own—a course to which the Motherland has offered no objection. I, as representing New Zealand, of course, do not, and could not, offer any objection, though I am entitled to discuss and criticise the course taken, in order to emphasize the need of some Imperial Council properly accredited to co-ordinate and harmonise these policies of naval defence, and of the still greater question of naval supremacy. Does the Conference fully appreciate what has happened so quietly, because the relations between the Motherland and Canada have been so harmonious? Canada has, in recent years, grown into a strong nation—no longer in a state of tutelage, sheltering behind the protection of the Motherland. Canada, feeling that she has passed through infancy to full manhood as a nation, has originated and made law a naval scheme for the creation and maintenance of a local navy, a navy not only to be maintained and controlled by the Canadian Government, but a navy which is not to participate in an Imperial war unless Canada herself approves of that war. Under the existing system, the rest of the Empire, consequently, might be at war, and the Canadian Navy withheld from it, and inactive. But I want to impress the fact that the Empire cannot be at war and Canada at peace at the