The part which Australia and New Zealand, like Canada, had taken in the war gave new urgency to the question of imperial relations. English imperialists were convinced that the time was ripe for a great advance toward centralization, and they were eager to crystallize in permanent institutions the imperial sentiment called forth by the war. When, therefore, the fourth Colonial Conference was summoned to meet in London in 1902 on the occasion of the coronation of Edward VII, Chamberlain urged with all his force and keenness a wide programme of centralized action. "Very great expectations," he declared in his opening address, "have been formed as to the results which may accrue from our meeting." The expectations, however, were doomed to disappointment. He and those who shared his hopes had failed to recognize that the war had called forth a new national consciousness in the Dominions, as the self-governing colonies now came to be termed, even more than it had developed imperial sentiment. In the smaller colonies, New Zealand, Natal, Cape of Good Hope, the old attitude of colonial dependence survived in larger measure; but in Canada and in Australia, now federated into commonwealths, national feeling was uppermost. Chamberlain brought forward once more his proposal for an imperial council, to be advisory at first and later to attain power to tax and legislate for the whole Empire, but he found no support. Instead, the Conference itself was made a more permanent instrument of imperial cooperation by a provision that it should meet at least every four years. The essential difference was that the Conference was merely a meeting of independent Governments on an equal footing, each claiming to be as much "His Majesty's Government" as any other, whereas the council which Chamberlain urged in vain would have been a new Government, supreme over all the Empire and dominated by the British representatives. Chamberlain then suggested more centralized means of defense, grants to the British navy, and the putting of a definite proportion of colonial militia at the disposal of the British War Office for overseas service. The Cape and Natal promised naval grants; Australia and New Zealand increased their contributions for the maintenance of a squadron in Pacific waters; but Canada held back. The smaller colonies were sympathetic to the militia proposal; but Canada and Australia rejected it on the grounds that it was "objectionable in principle, as derogating from the powers of self-government enjoyed by them, and would be calculated to impede the general improvement in training and organization of their defense forces." Chamberlain's additional proposal of free trade within the Empire and of a common tariff against all foreign countries found little support. That each part of the Empire should control its own tariff and that it should make what concessions it wished on British imports, either as a part of a