ABSTRACT
The preliminary report issued on the evening of the 5th August announced the end of what had proved one of the most singular conferences of modern times. Of the original agenda only two items had been seriously considered: the Japanese Alliance and the matter of a future constitutional conference. The first had shown itself a hopeless stumbling-block; the second had been abandoned with the eminently discreet remark that no advantage was to be gained by considering it. As for the other items on the agenda paper, they were quietly swallowed up in the great void where lie most official things. 1 A subtle realization of their meaningless ness in the face of the unliquidated business was enough to despatch them to this congenial limb. Foreign policy, Imperial migration, the League of Nations, defence, communications—what did they all amount to when no unity had been discovered in matters of prime importance? The requiem mass on the conference was significantly enough contained in the resolution on naval defence, a resolution constituting in itself a very important footnote on British Constitutional history and therefore worthy of being preserved in a more popular form than between the covers of a White Book.
"That while recognizing the necessity of co-operation among the various portions of the empire to provide such naval defence as may prove to be essential for security, and while holding that equality with the naval strength of any other Power is a minimum standard for that purpose, this conference is of opinion that the method and expense of such co-operation are matters for the final determination of the several Parliaments concerned and that any recommendations thereon should be deferred until after the coming conference on Disarmament."
