at the conference implied the signing of the peace treaty by representatives of the dominions. This carried with it the necessity of the Dominion parliamentary approval before Canada was subject to it and it carried with it as well the necessity of our entering into the League of Nations in full membership, with all that that meant in modification and change in our international relations (hear, hear). I was in London, attached to the Canadian delegation, when the momentous decision to ask for representation at the conference was made, and I do not imagine that the future was altogether foreseen as to the very great consequences that followed from that decision. But the dominion premiers had no alternative. It was a case where the decision had been made by events. When the conference met in Paris to make peace and to provide for a future world which would be better than the one which had been broken to pieces by the war it was out of the question that the great British Dominions should make a fugitive and intermittent appearance in the conference chamber, to which relatively insignificant nations belonged as of right (hear, hear). The war had shown that we were nations not in name, but in fact, because no country which was not a nation animated by a determination to maintain its institutions intact could have achieved what we achieved in Canada, and what Australia achieved and what New Zealand achieved (hear, hear). Our entrance into the peace conference was not the result of the deliberations of statesmen, but was the recognition of a state of affairs which had been brought about by the great war.

As a result of these decisions and changes a general principle has emerged which governs all imperial relations between the self-governing British nations. That is the principle that the British countries are nations of equal status, joined in a partnership of consent (applause). Equality does not permit of qualification. You are equal or you are not. The next step which I presume will be taken by the constitutional conference when it meets shortly will be to make that equality a matter of formal affirmation. I believe—and if I had time I think that I could give very powerful reasons for that belief—that it is desirable that that definition should be made with the least possible delay. I read a speech recently by General Smuts, who, in difficult circumstances, is fighting the battle for empire in the hottest corner of the British empire at present, in which he said that the need for this formal change was vital and pressing, and I imagine he knew what he was speaking about. I could, I think, demonstrate that we can not go forward with any large schemes of co-operation until the present somewhat indefinite status is cleared up and replaced by an understanding which will make clear not only to ourselves but to the outside world that the British empire is a partnership of nations of equal status united in a partnership of consent (applause).

It might be said that these decisions which have been made meant the victory of one school of imperial thought over the other, but as I have tried to make clear I do not think that men consciously were responsible for these decisions. The complexity of circumstances, the exigencies of the war, political expediency, what could be done, and what could not be done, in a word, Destiny, simply vindicated the principles which had been enunciated by Burke with matchless lucidity as those which for this generation were the principles which should be applied. I know very well that there are people who are disturbed in their minds about this. They are people for whom I have the greatest admiration. They are devoted to British institutions; but they cannot get it out of their minds that if we are free to separate we will separate, though no formula could keep us together if we wanted to separate (hear, hear). That is the kernel at the heart of the whole question. These people say, "If it is a partnership by consent what