Sept. 28.
This weak the British Empire olds its periodic stock-taking. fu the sense that the practical is, always of more importance than the theoretical, this Conference of the Dominions with the Mother Country is of a special significance transcending the sometime uneven transactions which proceed from time to time at Geneva. The British Comexonwealth of N is. the British League of re experienced tional aspirations ints of corporate more compact insteumss: for the preservation ye the world's peace because the suie238 of its policies depends the main on the avoidance of wae. It is in xo way an aggressive union. At the last Imperial Conference of 1926 the question the equality of status of the camponert parts of the Coaference.was discussed. The consult came in the appointment who recently concluded their labours, which might be described: laying down the definition of the position and mutual relation of the self-governing nations of the British Commonwealth. This committee sat in camera. Its deliberations were remarkable for an amount of plain speaking and advanced thinking which came as a shock even to some of the most liberal-minded of the representatives of the British Government. In the search for equality the Committee approached very closely' to the position of—insisting that the right of secession was inherent in the' status of self-governing dominions. There are obvious rough and ready means of proving that this right of secession cannot be legally granted. The best perhaps is to ask whether, in the event fan outbreak of war between Great Britain and some other country, a self-governing. dominion by asserting its right to secede, could save itself from attack from the country with which Great Britain was at war.
Presumably this report upon the Legal Unity of the Empire will in due course be considered by the present Conference. It will perhaps regret that its predecessor was so much carried away by a desire to submit the prod duct of evolution to the precise but often misleading limitations of legal language. The Conference, indeed, may re-affirm its belief in those profound words: of Edmund Burke who, after asserting that "Government is a practical thing—it is not a thing made schemes of dains" pointed out that English-mon stopped short of the principle on which they supported any given part of their constitution or even the whole of it altogether.
For in the present state of affairs, whether in Grent Britain lor Overseas, it would be a thousand pities if the Conferencs were to spend overmuch time on theoretical abstractions. It may be admitted that the desire to assert the equality of the Dominion Parliaments with that sitting at Westminster has been strongly attractive to some minds. It is, however, becoming increasingly clear that if the Dominions are to be gives pewer which would in effect remove extra-territorial restric tions—the epithet is used in its legal and not in its localized sense current in China— preposterous confusion would arise. It may be added that in the last year the difficulty of actly defining Dominion Status has been brought out in the discussions over India's future position. One competent authority has laid it down that complete equality of status between the Dominion Legislatures and Westminster can be attained only by an Act of Parliament declaring the Dominions to be independent or by constituting them "separate Kingdoms with separate Crowns united merely by a dynastic tie." This would be a curious method of achieving unity and it would certain. ly not enhance the strength of the Empire. It is expected that the expert advisers to the Conference will be able to arrive at some typically British man-¢|ner of shelving this difficulty and yet of disposing of the practical requirements whic' brought it to light.
The economic issue is certain to be fully discussed by this present conference. It the legal relationships of the Dominions were to the fore in 1926, there is little doubt that in the current year economic unity will be uppermost in the minds of the delegates. The Trade Union Congress which exercises 50 powerful an influence over the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.