Sir,

I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Despatch No. 95 of the 5th April with regard to the Naval Conference proposal.

2. The proposal of my Ministers regarding representation at the Conference is briefly as follows:

The plenipotentiaries for the various states of the Commonwealth should have full powers issued in each case by His Majesty on the advice of the government concerned indicating and corresponding to the jurisdictional area of the government on whose behalf they are to sign. The plenipotentiary for Great Britain would thus hold Full Powers expressly indicating that they are issued in respect of Great Britain and her dependencies. Australia's Full Powers would be limited to Australia and her mandated territories, and those of the other parts of the Commonwealth would be limited in like manner according to the jurisdictional area of each.

3. Under this form of representation, which is the form described in Paragraph 3 (a) of your despatch of the 5th April, all the governments of the Commonwealth would be completely and exclusively represented by their own plenipotentiaries and there would be no constitutional difficulty and, as far as my Ministers are concerned, no objection in the way of forming a single or group delegation.

4. As the dominions could not be represented at the Conference without receiving an invitation from the United States of America, my Ministers will be glad to instruct Professor Smiddy to join Sir Esme Howard in suggesting to the State Department that an invitation should be sent to the Dominions if that step has not already been taken by Sir Esme Howard alone.