1268 ADMINISTRATION AND LEGISLATION [PART V 
of co-operation! Such staff branches have been organized 
in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and are in direct 
communication with the Imperial General Staff. 
Advice in all matters of the military or naval preparations 
of the Dominions can be obtained from the Overseas Defence 
Committee or the more august Committee of Imperial 
Defence. The former, now affiliated to the latter, is much 
the older body, and it performs the important duty of 
advising on all matters of detail submitted to it, and of pre- 
paring questions for the consideration of the Committee 
of Imperial Defence. That body 2 which owes its consti- 
bution to the interest taken by Mr. Balfour in Imperial 
defence, is remarkable in being presided over by the Prime 
Minister, and its constitution is elastic, and allows of the 
presence of members of the Dominion Governments? 
when questions affecting the Dominions are concerned, and 
on these occasions the Secretary of State for the Colonies 
is present or is represented. In this Committee, combined 
with occasional Conferences such as that of 1909, would seem 
{or the present at least to lie the mode of securing a certain 
amount of continuity in the defence policy of the Empire. 
In general the local army Acts are based on the Imperial 
model, but differ considerably as to punishments, which are 
aormally less severe. In time of war, however, the full 
rigour of the Imperial Acts prevails. Outside the limits of the 
Dominion the troops reniain subject to Colonial legislation, if 
any ; if not, they fall under the Army Act, in accordance with 
the express terms of s. 177 of that Act. But to this rule there 
is the exception that men sent for training to other forces 
now by Imperial and local legislation fall under the control 
of the Dominion or the United Kingdom, according to where 
they are serving at the time. Moreover, legislation has now 
been adopted by Australia and New Zealand in 1909 under 
* See Parl. Pap., Cd. 4048 ; 5335, p 4 
* For practical purposes it seems to supersede the joint naval and military 
Colonial Committee established in 1890 ; see (\. 5979, p. viii. Cf. Parl. 
Pap., Cd. 2200 ; 3524, pp. 15-7; Hansard, ser. 4, cxxxix. 68, 619: cxlvi. 
62 ; House of Commons Debates, viii. 337, 1382 seq. 
® e.g. in 1911 defence matters were held over for discussion with the 
Ministers of Defence of Canada, Australasia. and the Union.