the Committee of Imperial Defence admits of being used as a cloak to cover the incompetence of our responsible Executive. If so, the precedent is useful as a warning. The proposed advisory Council, irresponsible and with no executive authority, might be used as a shield by any incompetent or weak Ministry in any of the autonomous States. What is required is not more advice, but simply cooperative action by those heads of States who alone have the advantage of power and the restraint of responsibility.
As matters stand, there is the nucleus of the required executive body in the Colonial Conferences, at which the acting heads meet together to discuss the possibility of joint action in definite departments of policy. The next step, therefore, is to make that Conference a permanent institution. It could be done partly by utilizing the cables, partly by the appointment of deputies to represent the colonial Premiers in London. Such deputies perhaps exist already in the High Commissioners. But it may be left open to each colonial Premier to make his own arrangement for the purpose of the Conference. Whenever critical questions were under discussion, the representative in London would have to make a free use of the cable. On normal occasions he would act more on his own discretion, always being responsible solely to his own Government for the policy to which he committed his country. The Colonial Office, of course, would not have any regular locus standi in connection with the Conference, at which the executive heads of States would be associated on equal terms. If the Colonial Secretary attended, he would do so either as the Prime Minister's deputy, or by special invitation in order that the Conference might have the benefit of his opinion. In the same way other men of authority might be invited to attend, but would not thereby become members of the Conference, which must consist, as an executive body, only of the responsible heads of Governments.
Normally, but not necessarily, the chairman of the
