1552 IMPERIAL UNITY [PART VIII King’s regulations and Admiralty instructions and the Naval Discipline Act, the British Admiralty and Dominion Governments will communicate to each other any changes which they propose to make in those regulations or that Act. It will be seen that the proposals virtually accept in the fullest way the independence of the Dominion navies save where international relations are concerned and save in war, when the Admiralty will assume full control of the navies if and when the appropriate authority, the Governor in Council, places either at the disposal of the Admiralty for the war. The only legislation necessary to effect this end would appear to be an amendment of the Nawal Discipline Ac, so as to apply it to the Dominion fleets when under the control of the Admiralty in time of war, and to remove any doubt as to the extra-territorial operation of the Dominion laws. 1 It falls to be added that nothing was said at the Conference itself on General Botha’s proposed resolution as to the charging to any subsidy granted to the navy of the cost of local defence works, the matter being left for discussion between the Admiralty and the South African? represen- tatives. § 6. THE RESvnLTs OF THE CONFERENCE Mr. Asquith and Sir Joseph Ward were fully justified in claiming that the Conference could challenge comparison with any of its predecessors as regards both the amount of what was done and the importance of the conclusions arrived at. Unquestionably the main importance of the Conference consists in the fact that for the first time the Imperial Government took special steps to impart to the Dominion Premiers a full statement of the position of international politics, especially in their bearing on the problems of defence. It is, of course, true that the importance of the episode may be exaggerated ; the admission of the Dominion ministers into the arcana imperis completes only the principle which has been acted upon consistently in recent years 2 Parl. Pap., Cd. 5745, p. 432.