A.—4

186

sth Day.] Standing Committee. [8 June, 1911. Sir JOSEPH WARD—cow*. the next Imperial Conference. As a matter of fact, it cannot be done. In short, the value of this Imperial Conference is, to my mind, being extraordinarily minimised on account of the inability to do anything in connection with it with the existing machinery which will enable us to carry on the important work we are dealing with between men who come from overseas as representatives of their respective countries and the representatives of His Majesty's Government who attend here and are taken from their various duties from time to time for that purpose. These are matters which no Secretariat can deal with—it has no power to deal with them, and it is not possible for it to deal with them, nor can the Secretary of State for the Colonies deal with them from the point of view of our respective Dominions. There is one matter which is coming up for discussion at this Conference which has been alluded to already, and was referred to at the last Imperial Conference, and I have no hesitation in saying that it could have been dealt with if we had had a Committee appointed for the purpose, as outlined in condition 3 of Mr. Harcourt's proposal: " Being a Committee of the Imperial Conference, it must deal only with matters which concern the past Conference or have to do with the preparations for the approaching one, or for any other matters which seem to be appropriate questions between both." Now take the important matter of navigation and shipping, which is going to be referred to at this Conference. That is a matter which is of supreme importance to most of the oversea Dominions—certainly it is to Australia, and to South Africa, and to New Zealand, and I do not know to what extent it may be important to Canada, as I am not sufficiently cognisant of the position there to even indirectly suggest whether it is important or not important to them; but if there had been such a Committee existing between the last Imperial Conference and the present one I, as the head of the Administration in New Zealand, would certainly have been in communication with the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and with whoever was our representative upon that Committee, for the purpose of giving effect to the suggestion contained in No. 3 of Mr. Harcourt's proposal, in order to impress from time to time upon all the other representatives who formed that organization the absolutely extraordinary position which our oversea countries are placed in in connection with the Suez Canal, and I would have asked that the matter should be considered. I should not have rested content to allow it to wait in order to be brought up again in four years' time. If we do not arrive at a decision upon it at this Conference it stands over until the next if you negative these proposals, and we shall be in the position of going away leaving this very important matter in abeyance for another four years. That is why I say that upon these important matters, which are vital to the development of our overseas trade and vital to the people of our respective countries, we ought not to be content with affirming resolutions and sending some of them on to sub-com-mittees to deal with, because upon their reports it is impossible for us, within the limits of time at the disposal of the Conference, to shape them into anything like practical form upon which we can unitedly, in our respective countries, legislate. Are we to deliberately continue to be in that most unsatisfactory position at the end of each four-yearly period ? I know the British Government cannot alter the Suez Canal dues of their own act, and I have made that clear whenever I have spoken upon the subject anywhere. I know Avhat the position is; but still, as we are co-operating with the British Government in trying to obtain uniformity and trying to improve the position of the oversea Dominions, I am a great believer in pressing for a change in the undesirable position of things in regard to the Suez Canal, which is so important to our people in New Zealand, as it is also to the people of Australia. It is so important to us because we cannot to a large extent make use of that canal for a very large portion of our shipping, on account of the very unsatisfactory condition of things existing there, and our people look upon it as a gross hardship. I say, upon such a matter, if there had been machinery in existence, I certainly, as head of the Government of New Zealand, would have asked our representative here to have had a meeting of that Committee called in order to deal with that matter among others. I would also from time to time have urged that the important matter which was brought before the Chancellor of the Exchequer the other day—namely, the question of double taxation—