taken was in some measure determined by the nature of that detail. The leaders involved also were as much interested in the Peace as they were in the constitution and the theory of the Empire. To this circumstance is due the fact that there was no definite scheme of changes suggested.

If they had been made at a Constitutional Conference, the responsibility of leading that Conference would have rested upon Great Britain. But at Paris British statesmen were almost completely passive on this matter. With one exception the changes which came about were the result of Dominion action. Lord Milner, Secretary of State for the Colonies, was in charge of the British Delegation for a considerable period, but he never appears to have uttered a word of advice as to the effects of changes proposed. This attitude was probably judicious. For it takes a lot to eradicate the (very ill-founded) suspicion in the Dominions that British statesmen are always endeavouring to dictate to the Dominions, and that Lord Milner in particular was at the head of a conspiracy to impose Imperial Federation. Still suspicion is the worst toxin that affects Democracy. British statesmen are, as things stood before the war, responsible for the security of the Imperial fabric, and, if they adopt a passive attitude, this responsibility is not being discharged.

With one or two exceptions, the statesmen who represented the Dominions at Paris had little in the way of experience or organisation to equip them for their task. The development of Colonial autonomy had led to their exercising a considerable degree of power in matters wherein foreign nations were involved. Behind this autonomous power there was, however, a consciousness of the legal unity of the whole Empire, which imported the certainty that the might of the Empire would be available in case independent action landed a Dominion in trouble. There was thus power without responsibility, power without a clear consciousness of the foundations upon which it rested. This was not good training for the delicate tasks of diplomacy. Statesmen, accustomed to the anxious experience of European diplomacy, have the most acute sensibility as to the proportion which must exist between their

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resources and the policy they advocate. To any man with a natural gift for diplomacy this sense will come as an instinct. It would be too much to expect it in every statesman who happened to have secured high office at the time the great diplomatic Conference was summoned. As a matter of fact, Mr Hughes at Paris frequently acted, or rather spoke, not as if he were the representative of a small defenceless community, but as if he had command of the whole might of the Empire.

There was no common Dominion point of view at Paris. Co-operation was far less frequent than might have been anticipated and was never sufficient to merge the provincial attitudes of the Dominions or lead to the adoption of any principles upon which common action was feasible. Prior to the war each Dominion, owing to its peculiar circumstances, approached Imperial problems from a different angle. Nothing was done at Paris to accommodate these differences. In the case of South Africa, represented by General Smuts, one of the greatest statesmen at Paris, the racial question has an immense influence. The enlightened character of British policy in South Africa has worked wonders; but there is still a residue of dislike of the Imperial connexion, and it is still an advantage to General Smuts to be able to reconcile the Imperial connection with practical independence for South Africa. With the exception of South Africa, however, the degree of satisfaction of a Dominion with the status quo ante bellum is in ratio to its vulnerability to outside attack. Canada, resting under the shadow of the Great Republic, fears no external foe, and has been pressing for years for separateness in diplomacy. The new status of the Dominions at the Conference was the logical, if questionable, culmination of this process. In Paris, Canada leads the movement for increase in Dominion independence. Newfoundland and New Zealand, small isolated Dominions incapable of defending themselves from aggression, tend in the opposite direction. Newfoundland is not separately represented. The New Zealand representatives take all that is offered in the way of independence, but their action is severely criticised in the Dominion Parliament and is not at all popular.

Australia stands at the dividing point of these

differing tendencies. The war caught Australia at a time when the national idea was in a state of effervescence. The national consciousness was inflamed, and all the national resources were thrown without reservation into the war. At the back of all this is Australia's isolated and dangerous situation-a huge continent sparsely populated by Europeans, the masses of overcrowded India and Japan within a few days' sail. Therefore, Australia relies exclusively on the Imperial connexion for her safety. This has its reactions on Australia's attitude at the Conference. The League of Nations Covenant finds Mr Hughes in opposition. The international mind of General Smuts relies on the League of Nations and visualises the Empire as a loose association of peoples within it. The intensely national mind of Mr Hughes fears the League because of its possible solvent influence on the Empire. With curious inconsistency Mr Hughes is as zealous as Sir Robert Borden in all schemes for promoting independent status for the Dominions.

During the war a definite promise had been made to consult the Dominions as to the terms of peace, but the Armistice approving of the Fourteen Points was signed without consulting any of them, though Mr Hughes was in London. When the Dominion delegates arrived in Paris they found Mr Lloyd George pressing on a rather surprised President Wilson the independent representation of the Dominions. The Italian and French representatives on the Council of Ten heartily supported him. Mr Lloyd George won his point, and the Dominions were classed with Greece and Serbia as powers with special interests. Of course Dominion membership was of some substantial value to Mr Lloyd George. It assisted to redress the balance of non-European influence which was affected by the large number of American Powers present. Nevertheless, there is a glaring contrast between the mood of November, in which the Dominions were forgotten, and the mood of January, when the Dominions were placed in a position of full co-operation and responsibility. It cannot be said that the mind of Mr Lloyd George was penetrated with any clear and definite idea of Imperial relations.

Therefore, during the Peace Conference, the Dominions remained members of the British Empire Delegation and were guests of the British Government at the Hôtel Majestic. They shared all the confidential information and all the contributions of the skilled experts who made up the Delegation. They shared in the momentous discussions which the Delegation held, and some of them did valuable work as representatives of the British Delegation on the various Commissions. They were exposed to the arts of foreign diplomacy, and the shrewd leaders of Continental nations were in one or two instances able to play upon their weaknesses and use them. But, up to the signature of the Peace Treaty, there was a reasonably effective system of co-operation. There was no opportunity for voting combinations at which the representatives of the Dominions could vote against the representatives of Great Britain. When the Dominions were admitted to the Conference, there was no heart-to-heart talk with them at which a mutual understanding as to the conditions and limitations of the system was arrived at; and in the circumstances it is surprising that no untoward incident happened. It will be seen, moreover, that when Mr Hughes protested against the application of the mandate system to German New Guinea, it was the British press and public whose support he tried to enlist. Mr Lloyd George was at all times prepared to assert the duty of loyalty of all members of the Delegation towards its central authority; and, if any attempt had been made to intrigue outside it, he would have called upon the delegate to choose whether he would remain a member of the Delegation or not.

In assessing the value of the change to the Dominions, a good many countervailing considerations have to be allowed. Mr Hughes, when he argued the case for annexation, was bowed in at the Quai D'Orsay, stated his case, and was bowed out. The subsequent decisions were a matter for the Big Five; and even Mr Lloyd George, though a representative of the Empire, was not necessarily committed to the arguments of Mr Hughes. If Australia had not been represented independently, her leader would have had a call, as of right, upon the British Prime Minister's voice. If his appeal were not

listened to, he could have appealed to his constituency or the British public. In any case he could have given the Prime Minister a bad time. It would have been difficult for the latter to refuse to put the Dominions' case and advocate it with the whole weight of his position as Leader of the British Empire. As it was, when he allowed them to state their cases he was absolved from responsibility. A candid observer must admit that the Dominions rather lost than gained in influence by the change. When the Dominions undertook to present their own cases an embarrassing responsibility was taken off the shoulders of Mr Lloyd George, a relief of which he was not insensible.

When the Dominion delegates signed the Peace Treaty, they did so as Ministers of King George V. Each Minister separately undertook the responsibility of advising the King that it was a proper treaty to sign so far as his Dominion was concerned. The form in which the Treaty was signed was the result very largely of pressure by Sir Robert Borden, who was more or less actively supported by other Dominion Ministers. The suggestion appears to have been accepted without much opposition by British Ministers. Of course, to a large extent, the form of the signature of the Treaty was a matter of domestic concern of the Empire. The separate responsibility of the various Governments did not affect the legal unity of the Empire. There is one Sovereign with whom foreign nations can negotiate. It was easy for the acute constitutional lawyers on the staffs of the Dominion delegates to find a formula in which this multiple responsibility could be expressed; and, when the formula was found, the Dominion Ministers, like a celebrated character in fiction, were completely satisfied.

But the Dominions have always, so far as ultimate responsibilities were concerned, been working within the Empire in a rather unreal atmosphere. They have never yet suffered the full consequences of their actions. The strength of the whole Empire has stood behind them; and the Government of the United Kingdom has assumed responsibility for them. It is not altogether inexcusable if they have not worked out the full implication of the formulæ they cheerfully signed. In the correspondence