§ £3,700 (Supplementary), Colonial Office.
§ MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON (Dundee)said he desired to call attention for a few minutes to one item contained in the Estimate—the item covering the further expenses incurred in connection with the Colonial Premiers' Conference. He did not oppose the Vote; on the contrary he entirely approved it. But he wished to remind the Committee of the very great importance of this Conference. It was a Conference of the Premiers of the self-governing colonies and it was called by the Colonial Secretary to consider some difficult and delicate questions of Imperial government. As the debates of the House showed, the Government had many difficult questions to settle in connection with the Empire, but he believed there were none more difficult and delicate or important than those concerning our relations with the self-governing colonies. So far as the Crown colonies were concerned—so far as India and our other dependencies were affected—that House was the absolute master; it had only to settle the policy, and there was no authority to interfere with its decision. But with reference to the self - governing colonies the position was entirely different. They had been told by a spokesman of the Government in that House that the self-governing colonies were in point of fact independent—that they were sister nations bound to us by a tie which was purely sentimental and extremely slight, and that, slight though it was, we would not bind them by it for a single moment longer than they desired. That was a view expressed perhaps in terms a little too unguarded on the part of the Government. But the chief question between ourselves and our colonies was that of Imperial defence. The self-governing colonies were daily and yearly increasing in population and in wealth; they stood in the proportion, he believed, of one to four, and if they continued to increase at their present rate—if to their number were added the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony—the numerical proportion would be largely 1244 altered. The first fact that stared them in the face was that the United Kingdom has expressly undertaken to defend—with its Army and Navy—all those self-governing colonies, and while they did that, the annual charge on their Votes was increasing by leaps and bounds. The self-governing Colonies practically contributed nothing to the cost of services the benefits of which they shared equally with ourselves. That very fact was the raison d'é tre of the Conference. Since the; original Estimate for the cost of that Conference was passed, the Conference itself had been held and had become an accomplished fact. They had the results before them in a Blue-book, which he might be permitted to say—although it was not very artistically or systematically arranged—was of enormous interest, value and importance. He wished to ask the Committee to consider the action of the Government in the management of the Conference, and their possible action in connection with its results. In the Blue-book they had, in the first place, the deliberate and formal statements carefully made by various members of His Majesty's Government in respect of matters of policy, while in the second place they had the results of the Conference in the Resolutions passed by the Premiers. But unfortunately they had not one single word of the speeches made or the reasons given by the Colonial Premiers in answer to the statements on the other side, and in that respect the Blue-book was deprived of much of its value. It was always possible for them to elicit the views of the Government on questions of policy, but they had no power of getting at the opinions of the great self-governing colonies, and the ground on which they based their views on the various questions discussed at the Conference.
THE DEPUTY-CHAIRMANOrder, order! In this matter I am guided by a great number of precedents, in which it has been laid down that questions of policy should not be discussed on a Supplementary Vote.
§ MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid he had no desire to discuss questions of policy. He wished simply to direct the attention of the Committee to the results of the Conference and to the adminis- 1245 tration by the Government of the expenditure in connection with it. He was commenting on the imperfect and defective nature of the Blue-book, in so far as it failed to give the speeches and opinions of the Colonial Premiers. He took it, however, that the resolutions passed at the Conference were the resolutions of the Colonial Premiers, and that the Secretary of State for the Colonies, who presided, was in no way committed by them. But they had a right to know what action the Government proposed to take in consequence of the resolutions. There was a preliminary question of great importance on which he desired information. A very important resolution touching the political relations between the self-governing colonies and the mother country was unanimously adopted on the Motion of the representative of New Zealand. It was to the effect that it would be to the advantage of the Empire if conferences were held, as far as practicable, at intervals not exceeding four years, at which questions of common interest affecting the relations of the mother country with her dominions over the seas could be discussed and considered by the Colonial Secretary and the Premiers of the self-governing colonies, the Secretary of State being requested accordingly to arrange for such conferences after communication with the Prime Ministers of the respective colonies. He was not proposing to discuss that question, but he did want to know if the Government had considered the point, and at what conclusion they had arrived in regard to it. It was a proposal that these conferences should become a permanent element in the constitution of the Empire, and once this country authoritatively declared that it wished it should be so it made a very important step towards the consolidation of the Empire.
The only other point on which he wished to say a few words was as to what was the net result of that important Imperial experiment as revealed to them by the Blue-book. What were the great points considered by the Conference? The first was the question of naval defence and the contribution of the self-governing colonies towards the cost of it. Next came the question of the 1246 military defence of the Empire, and the proposed colonial contribution, and thirdly there was the question of the commercial relations between the mother country and the self-governing colonies. In regard to the Navy most clear and specific declarations of policy were laid before the Conference on behalf of the Admiralty. It was pointed out what was the real function of the Navy in Imperial defence, and how it served the whole Empire—the self-governing colonies as well as Ireland, Scotland, and England. A suggestion was made without any hesitation on the part of the Admiralty—in the clearest possible terms—that the self-governing colonies should make some proportionate contribution to the expenses of this enormous and mighty Imperial armament. The Admiralty took up exactly the same attitude as many hon. Members had taken in years past, and had been severely censured for it, but he had nothing but praise for the Admiralty statement. He might, indeed, be allowed to go further and say that it had been a source of the greatest gratification to him to read what had occurred at the Conference on that point. The net result of the Conference, he gathered, had been a suggestion that the self-governing colonies should contribute something like a proportionate part of the cost of naval defence. The Capo Premier proposed to increase the Cape contribution to.£50,000 a year, without condition, while the Natal Premier in the same spirit proposed to increase his colony's contribution to £30,000.
§ THE POSTMASTER GENERAL (Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN () Worcestershire, E.£35,000.
§ MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid he gladly accepted the correction; but he gathered from what he had seen in the newspapers that communications which had passed since the Conference had indicated a desire on the part of those in authority in Capo Colony and Natal to increase the figures mentioned at the Conference, and he would like to know if the right hon. Gentleman had any information to give the House on that subject. The second point he desired to raise was as to the Australasian squadron. He understood that it was to be increased, and that the payments both of 1247 this country and of the Australasian Colonies were to be increased, while the conditions as to localisation were to be mitigated to some extent. Still it was to remain a local squadron; it was to be what in the opinion of naval philosophers was a naval heresy; it was to be more or less detached from the British Navy to which it properly belonged. Had the Government been parties to the draft agreement which appeared in the Blue-book, and were they committed to it? He trusted that they were. Nest, he had to ask if the Government had any information as to the course of the proceedings in the Australian colonies with reference to that draft agreement. The proposals shadowed forth in the resolutions of the Colonial Premiers had been under discussion for some months: had the Government any information as to the likely course of legislation on the subject?
On that point he thought the House and the country might be interested to have further and better information. The appeal to Canada had met with no response. On the first and most important head of the subjects submitted to this great Imperial assembly there was a small increase on the part of the South African colonies, a small conditional increase on the part of Australia, but nowhere near a pro rata proportionate contribution, and there was nothing whatever on the part of Canada. In point of fact, from the figures submitted in this paper itself it was calculated that the contribution of the self-governing colonies to the Imperial Navy, which cost this country something like 16s. per head, was 4d. per head, and that, he thought, was a fabulous 4d. because it took into account the Australian contribution, which was not a real contribution.
He would now say a word on the question of military defence. So far as he was concerned he could not venture to express in the same terms as he did in the case of the Admiralty his assent to the statements made on behalf of the Army. He could not reconcile the statement made on behalf of His Majesty's Government by Lord Selborne with the statement, equally made on behalf of the Government, by the Secretary of State for War. They appeared 1248 to him to be founded on wholly different theories and ideas. The question he wished to put on that head was this: when this Conference was called upon to discuss Imperial defence, was it in any way inspired, or regulated, or governed, or guarded by the Committee of Defence, which they had been told so often had special care of Imperial defence? What part did the Committee of Defence take in the proceedings of this Conference, and if it took any part how did it explain the discrepancy—the logical discrepancy at all events—between the theories of defence on behalf of the Army and those on behalf of the Navy submitted to the Colonial Premiers? This much was clear from the statement made by the Secretary of State for War, that whether under the old system or under the new system—whether under the Army Corps system or under the previous one—a very large proportion of the Regular Army of this country was held not for the purpose of the local defence of those islands at all, but for the purpose of Imperial defence in the possible benefits of which all the self-governing colonies were entitled to have a share. That was true no doubt, and it was certainly clearly to be inferred from the statement made. If so, obviously the same question of the colonial contribution arose in regard to the Army that had for so many years arisen in regard to the Navy. If we had, or were going to have an Imperial Army on Navy lines for the defence of the Empire, then the question immediately arose, ought not the self-governing colonies to pay any proportionate share of the very enormous expense of that Imperial Army? Proposals were made by the Secretary of State for War—he was referring to the contents of the Report simply—not in the same form as the naval demand, but they were really the same in substance. He asked them if they would guarantee a certain portion of their own local Militia—if they would undertake to set that aside.
*THE DEPUTY CHAIRMANOrder, order! I think the hon. Member is directing his remarks to matters outside the Conference.
§ MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid he was dealing with the proceedings of the Conference, which they were paying for now.
*THE DEPUTY CHAIRMANI understood that the hon. Gentleman was referring to certain remarks made by the Secretary of State for War.
§ MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid he was referring to the Report. "Remarks" would he a very derogatory word to apply to the great State paper which was now laid before them, He did not wish to dwell upon it, but he thought that for the information of the House he might be allowed to say that what the Secretary of State proposed was that instead of making any contribution in money, which was the Admiralty demand, the colonies should undertake to set aside part of their local force under the name of an Imperial Reserve, with a fee of so much per head, which this country was to contribute. Whether it was due to the unfortunate terms in which the case of the War Office was presented, or whether the colonial representatives were confused and dazzled by the contradictory representations made to them he did not know, because the Report did not tell them, but the proposals were rejected. That was why he emphasised at the beginning the fact that they had before them statements made on behalf of his Majesty's Government in full detail, but they had no corresponding statements on behalf of the colonial representatives. It was a great misfortune that the Committee had to content themselves with the bald statement of the results of the Conference as expressed in the resolutions of the Premiers. These were to be found on page 32 in regard to the Army. They would find from these resolutions that the proposals of the Government on this point were substantially rejected by the Premiers; but the Committee did not know the reasons. There was one reason mentioned, but they did not know the detailed reasons. They had not a report of the speeches in which the colonial Premiers put forward their views.
The Secretary of State for War failed more completely than the first Lord of the Admiralty did. He seemed to have failed entirely to carry the Conference with him, and the result was nothing 1250 less than what he regarded as the positive rejection of all his proposals to induce the self-governing colonies to come into the scheme of Imperial defence so far as the Army was concerned But there was just room for a little doubt which the right hon. Gentleman might possibly be able to remove. The Members of the Colonial Conference refused to pass any resolution in favour of the scheme proposed, but they referred each colony to the Secretary of State for War to see if any agreement special to it could be come to. He asked the right hon. Gentleman whether anything had followed from this—whether any proposal had been made on behalf of any colony apart from the Conference altogether. Had any single colony come forward and said "Although the whole body will not come into the scheme we, as an individual colony, are willing to come into it, and are willing to make our local militia part of the Imperial defensive force?" He thought the Committee ought to have some information from the Government on that point. One of the most interesting papers contained in the proceedings of the Conference was to be found on page 43. That paper was laid before the Colonial Premiers by the Government. It was called the Canadian, Australian and New Zealand contributions to the war. The complaint he had to make about it was that in this House during the summer of last year some Members of the House, he himself certainly for one, endeavoured to obtain this information from the Secretary of State for War, and it was repeatedly refused on behalf of the Government. But although it was refused to the House it was given voluntarily to the Colonial Premiers. Apparently it was pressed upon their consideration in the form in which it appeared in the Blue-book. At the time this paper was prepared the total expense of the war to this country was £222,000,000. That had been vastly increased since the time when the Conference met. He was quite sure that the people of this country did not realise that, in spite of the almost official manner in which many of these great colonies took up the policy of this country, and denounced all those in this country who disapproved of that policy, 1251 their contribution to this great Imperial War for which we had paid £250,000,000 was less than £2,000,000 altogether.
*THE DEPUTY CHAIRMANI am obliged to remind the hon. Gentleman that the cost of the war cannot possibly be discussed on this Vote.
§ MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONNo, no, what I was discussing was the paper.
§ MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid he was discussing the results of the Conference, and this was one of the papers which had been laid before the Conference. He would not pursue the matter, but he wished to know why that was given to the Conference which was refused to the House. He hoped he might be in order in asking that. He thought he was entitled to ask further—was any proposal put before the Conference that they should pay an increased contribution to the War? If that was not part of the proceedings he failed to see why this paper was produced. Surely he was entitled to ask why this formidable document was laid before the Conference on the part of the Government. Was it to support an appeal that they should pay for this Imperial war in South Africa in proportion to their strength, numerically or otherwise? There was one other point on which he wished to touch, and he trusted that he would not go beyond the limit assigned by the Deputy Chairman in discussing those Estimates. He asked the Committee to consider for a moment what the resolution of the Conference was on the subject of their commercial relations with this country. It was not known what they decided about the Navy or the Army, or what they said about the war; but on this question of commercial relations there was not the slightest dubiety. And the matter was so grave and so important that the Committee was bound to have some explanation from the Government as to their attitude with regard to these proposals. The net result might be stated thus: the Colonial Premiers, whom he was distinguishing all through 1252 from the Colonial Secretary, on matters of trade laid down the rule, first of all, that there should be no Free Trade within the Empire. Their second proposition—and this they made promise to recommend to their people—was that the various self-governing colonies should give preferential treatment to the goods manufactured by the mother country. And, in the third place, they prayed the Government of this country to give a corresponding preferential treatment to the goods from their respective colonies. There was to be no Free Trade, but mutual preferential duties between the mother country and the self-governing colonies. And that was the line taken in The Times by a gentleman who was not a political representative, but a certain representative of public opinion in Canada. Of course he was not entitled to discuss that as a matter of policy, but it would be a tremendous reversal of our historical policy on matters essential to the well-being of the United Kingdom; and he thought there ought not to be any doubt at all as to the attitude of the Government on that point. This was a Conference appointed by the Government themselves, and here was the result, and the House of Commons was left in doubt as to whether the Board of Trade was a party to this resolution or not—on. which the Colonial Premiers were most serious and most emphatic. He thought that they ought to have, as far as possible, some declaration on behalf of the Government as to whether they had in any way assented to these propositions. He hoped he had kept within the ruling of the Deputy Chairman, but he was certain he had not alluded to anything but what was of the greatest and most material importance in the report.
MR. GIBSON BOWLES (Lynn Regis)said that the strict question under discussion was the desirability, or otherwise, of the prolongation of this Colonial Conference, but it really seemed to him that it opened up a very serious matter. These Conferences were rather dangerous experiments. Let the Committee consider what they were. They had no official power, no official form; their decisions amounted to no more than pious opinions, and whatever resolutions 1253 they might come to had no binding effect whatever on the various colonies. Under these circumstances he failed to see the use of them. The discussions might have been instructive if only the Committee had had full reports of what had been said, but if they had only a report of the formal utterances of the Colonial Secretary, the Secretary of State for War, and the First Lord of the Admiralty, and not a word of what, after all, was the only interesting point of the proceedings, the speeches made by the Colonial Premiers, then the instructive value of the whole thing entirely disappeared. The Conference, as such, had no power, no authority to bind any one of the colonies. Each Premier had no power to bind his own colony, much less had all of them power to bind all the colonies. It was impossible, therefore, for the Conference to come to any coherent plan, or any plan at all. He thought that, although these Conferences entirely lacked the serious element of a formal body, there was considerable danger that the Colonial Premiers should come to them, and that the colonial people who read of them might take them seriously, and might imagine them to be a kind of Imperial Council or Imperial Parliament capable of coming to conclusions, and of having those conclusions carried out. That was a great danger. They could not put up an imitation body like this Conference and pretend that it was something real.
He would not traverse ground already covered, which referred to very serious and very important matters; but in regard to the subjects of defence and trade, he would point out that no conclusions of the slightest importance were reached by the Conference. Suggestions were certainly made, and opinions, diverse opinions, were expressed; but on account of the character of the Conference, no conclusions could be reached. It was said that by these Conferences they might always come to an entirely separate treatment between each separate colony and this country; but it required no Conference for this country to adopt one treatment of one colony, another treatment of another colony, and a third of a third colony. On the contrary, a Conference interfered with that mode of treatment. What had they got? In the case of defence the 1254 colonics did not contribute a fortieth part of the cost of the Navy. There was a contribution for the Navy from the Cape and Natal, but what was £75,000 out of £30,000,000? It was true that if the colonial contribution were capitalised, it would amount to the cost of an iron clad; but then our contributions were not capitalised. As a matter of fact the contribution of South Africa was infinitesimal; and the contribution on the part of Australia was no contribution at all. He had a number of papers from Australia which showed that they were very much occupied with the question of the Fleet and said—
We do not like the conditions under which we make a small contribution to the British Navy. What we mean is to have a Navy of our own, and to have nothing to do with yours.This sentiment was put in a very crude form by one of the Australian papers—Australia means to order now a cock-hat of her own.The contributions from the colonies did not amount to much; he would go further and say that it could not amount to much. We must take upon our own shoulders the whole cost of the Navy, for we would never get any material contribution in cash or in meal or in malt to our expenses for defence from the self-governing colonies. Their conditions were different from ours. They were forced to put very heavy duties on imports, and we could not expect to have contributions from them for the Navy, the Army, or in any other form. [An HON. MEMBER: You derive from Canada a contribution in the shape of preferential tariffs.] Yes, but he should like to know what that amounted to?
THE DEPUTY CHAIRMANsaid he hoped the hon. Gentleman would respect the ruling he had given. He could not go into questions of policy on this Vote; that could be done when the main Estimates came on a short time hence.
MR. GIBSON BOWLESsubmitted that he was strictly dealing with the policy of prolonging the Conference—the business of which was to discuss whether we could or could not get contributions from the colonies. His argument was that the Conference was 1255 useless, and its prolongation was worse than useless. His point was that these Conferences were not harmless, as they were represented to be, but that there was an element of danger in them. If ever they were to have another Conference, they should have a full report of what took place, and not a one-sided report of what the Colonial Secretary or the Secretary for War or the First Lord of the Admiralty said.
§ SIR ROBERT REID (Dumfries Burghs)said that in regard to the ruling which the Deputy Chairman had given, that the Committee could not discuss questions of policy on the Supplementary Estimates, was not it a rule that the Committee could not discuss questions of policy which might have arisen on the original Estimates? but, if between the original Estimates and the Supplementary Estimates a new question arose such as the result of the prolongation of the Conference, could not the policy arising out of that prolongation, as shown in this particular document, be discussed?
THE DEPUTY CHAIRMANsaid that the sum for the Colonial Conference in the original Estimates was £3,000, and an additional sum of £1,500 was asked for to make up the cost of the Conference, on which a new discussion on policy did not arise.
§ SIR ROBERT REIDsaid that all he would point out was that this was the first time that they had had the Blue-book before them, and therefore its contents could not have been precedently discussed.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRMANsaid that the Blue-book had been printed after the original Estimates had been issued, but according to all the precedents the policy of which the Blue-book was the subject must be discussed when the main Vote came before the Committee.
§ MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid he wished to ask whether on the Vote they were asked to pass that day it was or was not competent to discuss the contents of the Blue-book.
*SIR CHARLES DILKE (Gloucestershire, Forest of Dean)said he should like to ask the Deputy Chairman specifically whether the debate would be in order if continued at the point raised by the hon. Member who opened it—viz., on the declarations made by the Government at the Conference. He submitted that the Committee would not have an opportunity of discussing these except on the present occasion. He submitted, on a point of order, that there would be no further opportunity of discussing the declarations of the Government themselves.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRMANThe proper time for the discussion of the question of policy is on the Vote for the Colonial Secretary's salary. Then the whole question of policy can be discussed. I am very reluctant to lay down a ruling of my own, but, by the rulings of my predecessors, I am quite clear that the question of policy cannot be now discussed.
*SIR CHARLES DILKEsaid the policy of the Colonial Secretary could no doubt be discussed on his salary, but the declarations made by the Secretary of State for War and by the Admiralty could not be discussed except they were discussed separately on different items, which would be extremely inconvenient.
MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid he would remind the Chairman of the ruling of Mr. Speaker Peel, which was that although on Supplementary Estimates the policy underlying the original Estimates could not be discussed, nevertheless a Supplementary Estimate might be such as, from its amount, or from any other circumstance, to raise in itself a question of policy.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRMANThat is not quite a similar case. All Ministers have salaries, and, therefore, any question affecting them can be discussed on the Votes for their salaries.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINsaid he would strictly observe the ruling of the Chair. He thought the Committee 1257 would see that there were obvious difficulties in discussing in the Conference held last year the policy of the Government in relation to both the Naval and Military services, the whole trade relations of the Empire, and the administration of the Colonial Office at large. Many matters of great importance were raised at the Conference; but he thought the questions which were really germane to the Vote were not so much the views expressed by the Colonial Premiers who attended, or of Members of His Majesty's Government who were present, as the questions raised by his hon. friend the Member for Kings Lynn as to whether such conferences should be held, and that raised by the hon. and learned Member for Dundee as to whether they should be repeated. He would begin by clearing away one misapprehension which he thought existed in the minds of some hon. Members who had spoken, and which could only have arisen from an imperfect reading of the Blue-book. The hon. and learned Member for Dundee and his hon. friend made it a matter of serious complaint that the views of Ministers were printed at length, although they had little or no interest for his hon. friend [Mr. GIBSON BOWLES: Not at all.] while the matter which would have interested him, namely, the arguments put forward and the language used by the Colonial Premiers was not reported in the Blue-book. It would have been the wish of the Secretary of State and of His Majesty's Government to have published the whole proceedings of the Conference if they could; and, for himself, he thought it would have been useful, not only for the information of the people of this country but also for the information of people in the colonies, if the views expressed by the Colonial Premiers had been fully published in the official report of the proceedings. At the commencement of the Conference, in accordance with precedent, it was agreed that the proceedings should, for the time being, be treated as confidential, in order that everyone might be at liberty to express with perfect freedom his opinions, and discuss with absolute fulness and care the various questions which might arise, and that no publication should take place without the assent of those who had taken part in the proceedings. This was stated in the very first page of the summary of the proceedings. When the 1258 Conference came to an end the question of the publication of the proceedings was discussed, and it was feared that some of the members of the Conference were adverse to that course being taken. If there was lurking in any hon. Member's mind a suspicion that the Government had suppressed for purposes of their own—
§ MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid that nothing was further from his intention than to suggest anything of the kind.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINsaid he was extremely glad to hear it; but he had in his mind a complaint which was made by a journal, for which of course the hon. and learned Member was not responsible, that the Government had kept back that part of the proceedings. He thought that the great stress which was laid by the hon. and learned Member on the absence of the speeches of the Colonial Premiers was calculated, though not intended, to renew or perpetuate a misunderstanding which would have been mischievous in this country, and infinitely more mischievous in the colonies, if it were thought the views of the representatives of the colonies had been suppressed.
§ MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid he never saw the suggestion.
§ MR AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINsaid of course he would accept the hon. and learned Gentleman's statement that there was no misapprehension in his mind, and that it was very far from his intention to convey such an opinion to anyone else. But he thought the hon. and learned Member would not blame him, as there had been such a misapprehension, for stating in the clearest and most emphatic terms that the Secretary of State and His Majesty's Government would have been very glad to have published full reports of the whole proceedings, and that the somewhat truncated form in which the report was published was due, not to the wishes of His Majesty's Ministers, but of other members of the Conference.
The hon. and learned Gentleman asked him what were the intentions of the Government as to calling such 1259 a Conference on a future occasion If he understood the hon. and learned Gentleman aright he thought that the periodical recurrence of such Imperial Conferences would have the best effect, and would form a new link in our Imperial chain. His hon. and learned friend the Member for Kings Lynn thought that the Conferences were dangerous, and fruitless of good result, and that the summoning of any future Conference had better be avoided. In that matter, he agreed with the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite, and not with his hon. friend. He believed that view to be generally shared by all who had most closely followed the recent history of our Imperial relations; and he believed that those Conferences contained a germ which might blossom into the most fruitful possibilities in the future. They offered an opportunity for bringing together those responsible for the administration of the King's great self-governing colonies and responsible Ministers or the day in this country for a personal interchange of views on all the great questions which arose between the colonies and this country, and questions which affected the harmonious relations of one part of the Empire with another, upon the satisfactory and amicable settlement of which depended the future of the Empire itself. That was the opinion of the Government, and, without committing themselves to the specific period of four years, His Majesty's Government were certainly of opinion that periodical Conferences of this kind should be summoned regularly to discuss matters of common interest to the whole Empire. They could only be productive of great good, and they bore with them great hopes for a closer and more intimate connection between the Empire at large, a greater assimilation of our Imperial interests, and a better understanding between all parts of His Majesty's dominions. He said that, in spite of the fact that, as his hon. friend pointed out, the resolutions of the Conference were binding on no one. They were the opinions of those present on certain subjects which had been discussed, and were undertakings by certain of the Colonial Premiers present that they would make definite pro- 1260 posals to their own Parliaments. Of course they had no more authority to bind their own Parliaments than His Majesty's Ministers had to bind this Parliament; but they involved an indication of what the Premiers thought might fairly and properly be submitted to their respective Parliaments, and of what they might hope their Parliaments would agree to.
He was referred to certain newspaper paragraphs which, if he had seen them, he had not in his mind at the present moment. He was asked whether he could add anything to the statement of the results as regarded naval and military contributions contained in the Blue-book. Communications had been passing between the Ministers concerned hero and some of the Colonial Governments on this subject, but he had nothing to add to the statements which were summarised in the Blue Book; and he had at present no reason to suppose that further contributions were likely to be offered, though, of course, they would be the first to welcome them if such action were taken spontaneously by the Governments concerned. The two hon. Gentlemen who had spoken had each of them, in respect to the domain of naval and military expenditure, rather belittled the results of the Conference, and had emphasised how small a proportion of Imperial Naval and Military expenditure was represented even by the increased Colonial contributions which the Premiers undertook at the Conference to recommend to their respective Governments. He deprecated the spirit in which both hon. Gentlemen looked at the matter. The great Colonies with their own representative institutions were in truth sister nations practically independent of the country and bound to it by a tic of which it might perhaps be true to say, as the hon. and learned Gentleman said, that if viewed by a lawyer through a lawyer's spectacles it was extremely slight; yet it was a tie of sentiment and affection which had proved of great value to them in recent years, and which he believed, if met by a similar spirit in this country, would stand any strain that future events were likely to put upon it. He thought first of the assistance of all these great self-governing Colonies in the great Imperial War that they had just waged. After they had found troops from all the 1261 King's dominions fighting side by side with the troops sent out from this country it was a bad moment to choose to seek to minimise the service they had performed. He did not wish to be understood as expressing an opinion on behalf of the Government that the proportion of expenditure which this country bore to that which the Colonies bore could always, or ought, always to be maintained, but if there was a change it would have to come as a free and spontaneous offer from the colonies and not from any attempt upon our part to impose a greater contribution upon them. The Colonial Secretary had never hesitated to put this subject clearly and frankly before the Colonial Governments and the colonial people themselves, both in and out of the Conference. But applications upon this subject were, he ventured to think, better made direct to the colonies than in the form of a complaint to that House of how little the Colonies were doing, or in the form of a grudging criticism of what they had accomplished.
What had resulted from the experience of recent years, due in no small degree to these Colonial Conferences, had been a better appreciation on the part of the colonies of the great burden which rested on the shoulders of the people of Great Britain; a greater appreciation of how Imperial, in the truest sense of the word, was the task we were discharging and how intimately in that respect were the best interests of the colonies bound up with ours. If a proper appreciation of those things was spreading that was no small achievement in itself and gave good ground for hope that if the results attained were not great in quantity or equally spread over all the great self-governing colonies, yet what had been hitherto achieved had been in the right direction, and they might look forward with hope to a still greater extension in the future. He would not say more—in fact, within the ruling of Mr. Deputy-Chairman he could not say more upon the subject of naval and military defence. So far as those subjects required any further discussion they would have to be discussed on the Naval and Military Estimates, and the policy expounded by the Ministers at the Colonial Conference must be defended by those Ministers in 1262 that House. There was one specific matter to which, perhaps, he ought to refer. The hon. and learned Gentleman opposite had referred to the trade relations of the Empire, and had asked whether His Majesty's Government was bound by that resolution. He had already told the Committee what the effect of that resolution was generally with regard to all the Governments concerned. Any Government, from whichever side of the House it was chosen, would have to deal necessarily, most conscientiously and with the utmost consideration with any resolution coming from a body of the character of the late Colonial Conference, but this resolution was not binding on the Government, and the particular clause to which the hon. and learned Gentleman had referred was expressly put forward in the names of the Prime Ministers of the colonies and not in the name of the Conference as a whole. He had now dealt with all the points which had been raised, so far as they could be dealt with within the limits of that debate and he was certain the Committee at large would be of opinion that these Conferences were not without valuable results with regard to our future relations with our colonies.
MR. JAMES LOWTHER (Kent, Thanet)thought the Committee would endorse the opinion expressed by the right hon. Gentleman as to the attitude which that Committee ought to adopt with regard to the proposals contained in the Blue-books. It had to be remembered that great delicacy and caution was necessary in dealing with matters of that kind. There was one striking illustration of the arguments brought to bear by one of our colonies years ago when it was sought to make them pay a larger contribution to the Imperial expenditure than they were willing to bear. It would be as well, perhaps, to bear that in mind. In the last few months there had been most authoritative expressions of opinion by the Premiers of our self-governing colonies. It was perfectly true that the Colonial Secretary was not a party to the adoption of the resolution. The right hon. Gentleman's real position was that of President of the Conference to enable 1263 others to inculcate their views, and he very properly took no part in the vote for this resolution. But the resolution was unanimously adopted, and as an authoritative expression of opinion from the highest authorities concerned deserved a little more consideration with regard to the question of preferential trading. The question of how much we should endeavour to obtain in the way of a cash contribution towards the naval and military establishment was a very delicate matter to touch on. The Colonial Premiers resolved that a system of preferential trading should be carried out by which colonial produce should receive favoured terms, and that they should give in return these services. Canada gave 25 per cent. preference to British goods, and after a brief experience extended that preference to 33⅓ per cent. That was a bonâ fide Government act which showed that Canada was earnest in her convictions, and he was sorry to see that a tendency had been developed to mimimise and detract from the important success of that attempt. The result was that we had been receiving one-third of the duties and giving nothing in return. He had told Sir Wilfrid Laurier that this was like a man who constantly dined out six or seven nights a week, but never gave even a mutton chop in return.
All the other colonies had unanimously concurred in the general principle. The criticism that Canadian trade with countries other than the British Empire had relatively increased to a larger extent was by no means as conclusive as some assumed it to be. The tariff, of course, applied in the case of the United Kingdom and the—
THE DEPUTY CHAIRMANThe right hon. Gentleman is transgressing the ruling I gave just now. He cannot go into the policy of the trade relations with different colonics.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRMANIt would not be in order to discuss the Blue-book at this stage. That must come on when the Vote for the Colonial Office is under discussion.
MR. JAMES LOWTHERsaid he would not pursue the subject further, as the present afforded an opportunity for only a truncated discussion on the document which had been placed in their hands.
§ Vote agreed to.