The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1910-10-13
Reflections.

Inc coronation OF King George Y
and the next session of the Imperial
Conference will take place about
the same time. This is a coincidence
of peculiar significance. This coin
cidence has resulted in the sugges-
ton by Mr.. {. S. Amery, that the
formal Presidency of the Conference
should be vested not in any one of
the assembled Prime Ministers, but
in the King himself and that His
Majesty should open the Conference
in person soon after his coronation.
When in 1907 the conference passed
the important resolution that it was
to be no longer a departmental
affair of the Colonial Office, but a
conference between His Majesty's
several governments, it was resolved
that the Prime Minister of the
United Kingdom should be Elk
officio President, as representing the
Government of the Senior State.
This plan it appears, marked de-
cided step in advance in Imperial
sentiment, for it crystallized into
definite expression the feeling that
the self-governing colonies had
grown into nation states which no
longer recognized the right of Par
lament at Westminster to control
their destinies. 1t is now generally
recognized, as Mr.. Amery says, that
the Crown and not a Government
elected by the people of the United
Kingdom is the necessary pivot of
whatever constitutional machinery
may be evolved to meet the chang
ing needs of the British Empire.
This fact has lately been given
emphasis in Canada by the general
expression in favor of a royal prince
for Governor-G General and it has
found recognition in England by
the decision to appoint the Duke of
Connaught to the post. This de-
parture is of far deeper significance
than appears on the surface, for it |
a new idea in the rela-
tions of Canada with the mother
country, in that for the first time
since the Conquest it will be the
Crown who will be directly repre-
sc n ted in the Governor-General. |
instead of party Government.
In the larger field of the Empire
generally, the same idea is mani
tested in the suggestion that the
King shall be the recognized Presi-
dent of the Imperial Conference.
Ii carried out, this would be the
inal Endorsement of the principle
that all the Governments participant
ing in it, do so on a footing of
because the conference
would then bear the same relation
70 the Parliament of the United
as to the Parliament of
any other partner state. For the
to be fixed so as to fol-
ow almost Immediately upon the
Coronation would be singularly
happy conjunction of events. In
hat case the representative of all
he nation states within the Empire
night be summoned to attend the
ormal Inauguration of the reign of
heir new King. That the solemn
ceremony Of his browning would
BRING deeply home to all the over
eas representatives the great ideas
# Imperial unity and historical con-
inuity in the Crown, there would
,e no doubt. And what better be-
.inning to the Kings reign could
here be than that he should then, in
person, preside over the Imperial
Conference, thus definitely recogniz-
ng it as something over and above
he existing Parliaments; in word,
hat he should inaugurate the assem-
,ly as the Supreme Parliament of
he Empire? /.
There are many who believe with i
discount Miner that to convert the
present rudimentary organs of I'M
,erial Government into real organs,
ONE definite act of constitution i
aaking will become essential; in
ther words that there must be an