NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE Imperial Conference ended on Friday, August 5th, and the Dominion Premiers have returned, or are returning, to their various continents. Although there has been no precise formal change from the conferences that were held before the war, no one who has given the slightest attention to the present meeting can doubt that a new and supremely important principle has begun to arise in the government of the Empire—indeed, we may say, in the government of the world. This may be seen from the very range and scope of the subjects which the Confer- ence discussed. These included the Japanese Alliance, the Washington Conference, Imperial Communications, Imperial Immigration, and the Silesian question. This last is, from the Constitutional point of view, of peculiar interest. On this subject the Dominion Premiers met the members of the British Cabinet and discussed this entirely external and foreign question, not in their capacities as the Premiers of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, &c., but as the rulers of the Empire assembled together in conference to decide on the policy of that Empire in regard to one of the important questions of the day.
