New Cabinet Office

Under the official announcement that His Majesty had been pleased to appoint Lieutenant Colonel the Rt. Hon. Leopold Charles Maurice Stennett Amery (who is already Secretary of State for the Colonies) Secretary of State for the Dominions, lay a wealth of significance.

According to Premier Baldwin, Colonel Amery is to combine both offices, but will have a separate Under Secretary for the Dominions as well as a separate Under Secretary for the Colonies. For reasons of convenience and economy, the new secretariat of the Dominions will be housed in the Colonial Office. But matters which concern the Department for the Colonies will henceforth be distinct from those that concern the Dominions. In this respect, the new Cabinet office is a step in the evolution of a Commonwealth constitution.

The six Dominions (Canada, Newfoundland, Australia, New Zealand, Union of South Africa, Irish Free State), i.e., those which have autonomy, have claimed since the War a right to be consulted on all foreign-policy questions in which they may be vitally interested. Britain granted the right, but all efforts to set up political machinery to effect it have failed. The new arrangement at least facilitates communications with the Dominions, and, in the words of Premier Baldwin, "clear recognition of the profound difference between the work of communication and consultation with self-governing partner nations of the British Commonwealth and the administrative work of controlling and developing the colonies and protectorates for whose welfare this House is directly responsible."

In theory, the Dominion need not support the Mother Country in any policy or war which she undertakes; in practice, it has never worked out that way. It is thus argued that, if the Dominions are morally obliged to support the United Kingdom, and since they have (following the signing of the Versailles Treaty which Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Union of South Africa signed separately) international status as independent nations, the least that could happen in equity would be to give them a share in the control of the destinies of the British Commonwealth.