Upon that large and strong basis, I, for one, am ready to wait with patience and confidence the result of the deliberations of the future special Imperial Conference. With regard to the proposed Conference, I cannot see any reason for anyone to indulge in the "Nationalist" hysterical fears of an oppressive Imperialism devouring, as the old mythological god--Saturn--his own children. As I have said, the work of the special Imperial Conference will be rendered more or less easy by the conditions of the future peace. I pray, with all the fervour of my soul, that the war shall not end by a hasty compromise--as wished for by our blind, if not really disloyal, pacifists--by which the world would be doomed to another disaster far worse than the one it is straining every nerve to overcome, and that after years of the most costly warlike preparations. Such a peace would be the saddest possible conclusion of the present conflict, and much worse than the sacrifices yet to be borne by the prosecution of the war to a finish. We must all implore Providence to save Humanity from such a cataclysm. A special Imperial Conference meeting under such disheartening circumstances would indeed have a most difficult task to accomplish. It was evidently an act of wisdom on the part of the Imperial War Conference of last year to express the opinion that the special Imperial Conference should be summoned only after the cessation of hostilities. When peace shall have been restored with the only conditions which can be satisfactory to the Allies and to the world at large, a special Imperial Conference will be in order, having for its object to consider the readjustment of the constitutional relations of the component parts of the Empire, in conformity with the requirements of the new situation which will have grown out of the necessities of the war. However important the task, the tranquility of the world being, let us hope, assured for many long years, there will be no reason for the Conference to proceed hastily to any insufficiently matured conclusion. The representative public men who will meet in London from all over the Empire will not forget, we may rest confident, that the safest way to a good working readjustment will be, as it has always been in the past, that which will follow the straight line of natural growth. Dry cut resolutions, imprudently adopted, and pressed upon unwilling populations would have ninety-nine chances out of a hundred to be more injurious than profitable.