The Cabinet and Ottawa The Cabinet, having heard the report
of its Ottawa delegation, has, according to some versions, approved all the decisions reached, and according to others done nothing of the kind. Obviously no detailed approval has been given. But quite obviously it cannot be withheld. The Ottawa accords were a series of bargains (" The question of bargaining did not enter into our minds," declared Mr. Baldwin astonishingly in his broad- east speech last Saturday) negotiated by plenipoten- tiaries capable of guaranteeing that what they agreed to would he accepted by their Cabinets and their Parliaments. International agreements would be impossible, and inter-Dominion agreements equally, - if men sent to a conference with power to negotiate were disavowed by their colleagues. Mr. Baldwin and his fellow-delegates gave the Dominions the unprece- dented right to veto for a term of years any move by t his country to reduce various taxes we have agreed to impose on foreign foodstuffs, and they cannot have done that without the full concurrence of the Prime Minister. In any case there the agreement is, and to repudiate it now would do more harm than to implement it. But it is not too soon to demand that at its expiry it shall not be renewed.
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