News of the Week
The Imperial Conference ,,
THE Imperial :Conference, the first to be held under -I- a Labour Government, opened on Wednesday at the Foreign Office, and will probably last six weeks. Mr. MacDonald spoke first, welcoming the delegates and outlining the business before them. Speeches by each of the leaders of the Dominion delegations followed. There is a popular notion that the Conference will concern itself mainly With economic questions, but there is no justification for this in the Agenda. , The principal subjects are inter-Imperial relations, foreign policy• and defence, and economic questions. It is essential that something should be done first to tidy up the ambi- guities which are the itievitable sequel to the famous declaration at the Conference of 1926 abOut -equality of status in the British Commonwealth of Nations._ That Conference made a distinction between:equality: of status and equality of*Rinetion, -or, as General Hertzog calls it, Competency; but we --cannot -feel that the - way to a general- understanding hos Leen-- made easier -14. the Coaferenee which rreported on Dominion -Legislation :and Shipping Legislation.,
