Some Ottawa Interrogations The article on a later page from
a well-qualified observer of the Ottawa discussions, though owing to the hazards of the posts it appears a week later than was intended, loses nothing of its relevance for that. At any time in the next few months, indeed, its publication would be equally pertinent, for it will take more than months to work out an agreed and practical answer to the question our Ottawa correspondent poses : what is the ultimate basis of the relationships of the Commonwealth States, and what is the ultimate goal of Commonwealth co-opera- tion to be ? To that question the Spectator has constantly devoted attention in the past, and it will have to return to it repeatedly in the future. Ottawa was admittedly an experiment and an improvisation. It achieved at least a negative success in demonstrating the ability of the Commonwealth States to carry through to the stage of actual agreements discussions in which their pockets were touched and their interests often clashed. That is some- thing, whatever may be thought of the merits of the agreements themselves. But Ottawa opportunism has carried us a very small way, if any way at all, towards the evolution of a working philosophy of Empire. That is the next great task, and men of all parties and schools of thought must make their contribution to it.
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