CHAP. III] THE CONFERENCE OF 1911 1497 
should be supplemented by at least one Australian, one 
Canadian, and one South African judge. 
Mr. Deakin also urged that the powers of the Conference 
should be increased, and it should cease to be merely advisory. 
The needs and emergencies of the Empire were growing and 
made every year greater demands for Imperial action and 
often for united action by all the oversea Dominions. That 
united action was only to be obtained when, instead of a 
Conference separated by breaks of four years, continuity in 
character were given to its policy by providing means of 
keeping up the work, following up its suggestions, and giving 
effect to its resolutions. By that means only could the 
Conference be vested with the power that rightly belonged to 
it, making it a thoroughly Imperial body representative of 
the British race in every part of the world, without trenching 
on the local Governments of the Dominions or on the sphere 
of the British Government. It was by means of an Imperial 
Conference and no other way that the people over seas could 
obtain a voice in Imperial affairs, which were their own affairs, 
as they were affected by interests or actions within or without 
the Empire. By means of the Conference Australia had now 
some voice in the Councils of the Empire. Every grant of 
power or influence through the Conference was a gain of 
status. He remembered the time when there was no distinc- 
tion between self-governing and Crown Colonies, when the 
self-governing Colonies were not expected to possess diffi- 
culties or problems which could not be settled by the Colonial 
Office. He hoped that ministers would attach the greatest 
importance to the proposition that the self-governing Colonies 
should not remain associated in the same department or with 
the same officials as the Crown Colonies! These Colonies 
were under control and subject to advice and dictation 
which self-governing Dominions could not receive, except in 
another fashion, of whose acceptance they must be the 
ultimate judges. The Conference and the affairs under it 
should be entirely independent of the Crown Colonies Depart- 
L As will be seen from Parl, Pap., Cd. 3795, the desired separation was 
affected in 1907 by Lord Elgin, but Mr. Deakin disliked it, Cd. 5273, pp. 4, 6.