The British Imperial Conference

Extract

Opinions differ as to the significance of the work of the recent Imperial Conference. That it was the most successful of the conferences yet held does not mean much. For these conferences have in reality contributed little to the conditions of imperial coöperation. Meeting only once in four years, with necessarily little continuity of membership (only three members this year were present in 1923), and coming to problems with which they have had no continuity of contact, the representatives of the dominions can at best solemnly endorse general principles upon which all are agreed, at worst tender advice which in foreign affairs and in the economic sphere has often been ill considered. As Professor A. B. Keith wrote in “Imperial Unity and the Dominions,” “it may safely be predicted that if the dominion representatives are to have only such control of or intelligence of foreign politics in their relation to the Empire as they can pick up once in four years at a very much overcrowded conference, they are not likely to benefit the Empire very seriously by their advice.”