1462 IMPERIAL UNITY [PART VII
1882, in which the Imperial Government assert that in
matters affecting the United Kingdom Her Majesty must be
advised by her ministers in that Kingdom, and the reply sent
by the Government of 1903, though it did repeat the opinion
of 1882, and a similar resolution from Australia in 1906 met
with no criticism.
For the present at least it seems that consultation must be
the mode in which the new relation of the Dominions and
the United Kingdom is to be expressed, and the Imperial
Conference with the subsidiary conferences offers the obvious
mode of carrying out such consultations. It is much more
doubtful whether any system of a permanent Council of
advice such as that proposed by the Government of New
Zealand at the Conference of 1911 is practicable, for there is
the almost insuperable difficulty that a minister in a Dominion
can only keep himself in touch with the current of opinion
in the Dominion by residence there, and that a minister in
London must be more or less completely out of harmony with
the Government.2 Moreover, in the Dominions the supremacy
of Parliament over the Government is much more marked
than in the case of the United Kingdom, where many factors
concur in giving the Government a strong control over the
members of Parliament?
! Cf. Pope, Sir John Macdonald, ii. 228 seq. ; C. 3294.
* Bee Parl. Pap., Cd. 5745, pp. 92, 93, which decisively negatives the
idea of the High Commissioners as a political council (Jebb, Imperial Con-
ference, ii. 126-9). Sir C. Tupper’s case is isolated ; and technically even
he was only a servant of the Governor in Council (Rev. Sfat., 1886, c. 16),
though treated as a quasi-member of the Cabinet.
* Lowell in his Government of England rightly emphasizes this fact and
salaries to members will strengthen the position. But it applies in a
much less degree to the Colonies. The Labour Government in the
Commonwealth is strong in 1911, but its policy is settled in caucus. Sir
Wilfrid Laurier was strong, but deferred to Parliament far more than an
English Prime Minister.
