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