EMPIRE PARTNERSHIP

On the afternoon of the second day of theconference a discussion on Empire partnershipwas opened by Mr. J. W. Dafoe.

Mr. Dafoe: In opening this discussion Ido not propose a resolution because I donot claim to speak for anyone but myself,and those who agree with me (laughter).Those of us who were privileged to be membersof the first Imperial Press Conference willremember that a somewhat similar subjectoccupied a great deal of our time. In fact,it occupied two thirds of our time. It isa significant fact, showing the change thathas taken place, that today we are discussingempire partnership while eleven years ago thediscussion turned upon empire defence.There was a note of warning and apprehensionrunning through all the discussion atthe first conference. There was one wordmentioned over and over again—the wordArmageddon. In Lord Rosebery's famousspeech, to which so many allusions have beenmade the word occurred, and Stanley Reedof India, in arguing for unity of naval control,said that the Armageddon of the world mightbe fought at Cape Horn. He was not so farastray, seeing what took place at the battlefought later near the Falkland Islands.Mr. Balfour was still more accurate as aprophet when he said that the navalArmageddon would be fought in the waters of theBritish Islands. (hear, hear.) But among theprophetic speeches made at that conferencethat of Lord Roberts' took first place. Imade a reference to this the other day. Sincethen I have looked up Lord Roberts' words.He followed Mr. Haldane, as he was then,who said that the plans which were in processof completion would guarantee the empire astrong defence in twenty years. LordRoberts said that he thought twenty monthswould be more in order, and he used thislanguage: "A shot fired in the Balkanpeninsula might produce an explosion whichwould change the fortunes of every remotestcolony of our empire." That was the mostremarkable example of prophecy that theconference could have produced (hear, hear).Many other speakers at the first conferencefelt in view of the imminence of the dangerand its gravity that the time had arrived forformal engagements with regard to measuresof defence and the creation of machinery tobring that defence into action, and more thanone resolution of this character was submittedto the conference. They were not, however,forced to a vote because there were otherswho held contrary views, who believed thatthe policy was not in harmony with theevolutionary trend of events in the Britishempire and that the methods proposed w

BU KİTABI OKUMAK İÇİN ÜYE OLUN VEYA GİRİŞ YAPIN!

Sitemize Üyelik ÜCRETSİZDİR!