not driven to probabilities. The first tidings of the movement of those who assumed the title of the friends of the Colonies in this country, their interviews and correspondence with Lord Granville, have already reached Melbourne. The contre coup of the news is already making itself heard. It speaks precisely in those accents which might have been expected by observers familiar with the real state of the case. Instead of sympathy, those who have assumed the character of agents for Australia have met thus far with disapproval and repudiation. Those gentlemen represented the Australians as discontented because England, or, at all events, the Colonial Office, expressed no desire to retain them in close union. The colonists answer by declaring that in their opinion the union is still too close. Resolutions introduced into the Victorian Legislature, and articles in the leading newspapers, express the general sentiment in this direction; and no voice appears to make itself heard to the contrary. Our reformers here are not agreed themselves on any definite manner of strengthening the union; they have been feeling the pulse of the colonists, in order to induce them to suggest one. The colonists reply by suggesting a very definite manner of relaxing it.

Thus much may suffice concerning the probable temper of mind in which the subject of closer colonial union would be discussed, if any project for that purpose were seriously ventilated on this side of the world, and proposed for Australian consideration. But one of the chief difficulties connected with such discussion, in the present stage, is that the friends of the Colonies in this country seem to have, not only no programme unanimously adopted, but no proposal to make, and not even a choice of proposals for selection and decision. I can, therefore, only deal with a variety of scattered suggestions, some of which have been long debated, others have been indicated more or less timidly by individual speculators since the present controversy has arisen. Even if all these schemes could be shown, one by one, to be impracticable, there would no doubt remain the irrefutable "something ought to be done," which serves as a general reply to every particular answer. But we may, at all events, advance a step farther toward comprehension of the case, by noting the several remedies which have been proposed for the alleged evil, and the reasons against their applicability.

There are, no doubt, among ourselves, a great many who feel, though but few who avow the sentiment, that concession to the spirit of Australian independence has been carried too far already. They see no advantage to this country in a connection so slight, and maintained on terms somewhat derogatory. They do not perceive the object of maintaining Governors who, in truth, neither govern nor reign; the first substantial function belonging to the Colonial Executive, the latter to the Crown and its Ministers at home. And

they feel, unnecessarily, but not unnaturally, as if every rebuff which a Governor experiences in his uneasy dignity-uneasy, so long as he cannot be content with a simply neutral and inactive position-is a kind of affront to England. Reasoners like these might be disposed to say-If we are about to repair the fabric at all, let it be in such a manner as will increase its durability by strengthening the tie of subjection. Leave the Australian Colonies full control over what are really their domestic affairs; but take care to keep in our own hands what are really ours. Restrict them from imposing at their pleasure duties on the produce of our industry. Let us have a voice in the construction of their tariffs. Retract, or rather modify, the extravagant present made to them of our public land, not theirs in any reasonable sense, but in mere geographical nomenclature. Let the Queensland Government dispose of the soil of what is practically Queensland; but take back from it the fee simple of the coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria-in which it has no more real interest than the municipality of Odessa, if there be such a body, in the waste lands on the shores of the White Sea. Remove anomalies like these, and then we shall have the basis of some more equitable contract between the scattered members of the empire. If they are to be perpetuated, our unity is not worth maintaining.

"The gods

To all this the answer is only too near the surface. themselves cannot recall their gifts," as Tennyson has it; much less mortals, represented by a Government existing only on the fickle support of narrow Parliamentary majorities. We have given all away. To take it back would be unjust, even were it practicable. To get it back by bargain is impossible, because we have left ourselves no price to offer. We may try, if necessary, to reason the colonists into parting with some of their privileges and property; but such reasoning is rarely effectual. And to let Australia go, merely because we cannot indulge our sense of supremacy by managing Australia, would be to dissolve a valuable as well as honourable connection from childish feelings.

Dismissing such revolutionary ideas with this short notice, let us proceed to consider the few practical measures of unification which have been suggested in earnest.

The first is that which has been familiar to political thinkers ever since our first American dissensions a hundred years ago; that of admitting colonial representatives to the Imperial Parliament, and thus giving the colonies, severally, a share in the general government of the empire.

No plan of a great public reform has ever been more thoroughly ventilated than this has by the discussions of a century, since the time of Burke. The result of these discussions, as yet, has been to bring more and more into light the insoluble nature of the difficulties

which impede its adoption. I must, therefore, for my present purpose, regard this project, however plausible, as debated and dismissed.

Another has been more than once suggested, but has never received the attention which it appears to me to deserve. The grand peculiarity of our British constitution is, that it is unwritten. It is to be collected first from Acts of Parliament; next, from what is termed the Common Law. But this Common Law exists nowhere save in the decisions of the English tribunals. From whence it comes to pass-strange and paradoxical as the proposition may appear that a right of declaring law, which involves making law, and thus supplementing our Acts of Parliament not at home only, but in some respects all over the world, is vested in fifteen gentlemen, styled Judges of the Superior Courts of Common Law, who are employed, at the same time, in trying small thefts, and in repressing the malpractices of discreditable attornies. But the authority of Parliament is absolute. Although numbers of inferior legislatures, in Australia as elsewhere, have been created by statute or subsist by usage, these are all entirely subordinate. As against Parliament they have no right at all,-one might almost say, no existence. No definitions, no barriers of any kind, separate matters which are of the cognizance of local legislatures from those which are of Imperial. Such is the British constitution. The American, I need only point out in a few words, is framed on principles the very reverse of these. The federal constitution declares, in a general way, what subjects are within the purview of Congress, and what of the State legislatures. In every State, the courts of justice decide, in the first instance, whether a federal or a state law exceeds the respective legislative powers of the federation or of the state; but with appeal to the Supreme Court of Justice, which consequently possesses the absolute and final right to judge between State and Federation law, and is the ultimate regulator of the institutions of the whole Republic.

There is certainly something very attractive to the speculative politician in the notion of applying a similar fundamental law to the relations between Great Britain and her greater colonies. An Act of Parliament might, once for all, declare on what subjects the colonial legislatures should legislate without being subject to Imperial control the power of veto by the governor might, in analogy to the general rule of representative institutions, be retained, the power of disallowance by the crown abolished. And, as questions must arise whether a particular measure is, or is not, within the powers thus entrusted to the colonial body, a tribunal must be erected such as would command general respect,-either a central tribunal at home, or a tribunal with branches exercising its jurisdiction in the greater colonies, to which all such questions should be imme

diately referred. In this way we should obtain the nearest approximation to the vague idea so constantly expressed, but so seldom defined, of a general federation of British territories all over the world, each at once self-governed and taking a share in the general political relations of the whole. For, with the present omnipotence of Parliament waived, the several rights of the empire and its members defined, and a living tribunal constituted to maintain the definition, it would not be very difficult to add machinery for enabling each member to take a part, proportionate to its importance, in imperial administration.

The scheme no doubt commends itself by conformity to sound abstract reasoning. Nor is there any reason why it should not be fully considered, whenever a measure of this complexion is asked for, not by amateurs in England, but by the authentic voice of the colonies themselves. And it is not impossible, in the revolutions of human affairs, that it may present itself as part of a still larger project. For some generations past Parliament (or, more strictly, the House of Commons) has drawn to itself a constantly increasing share of the details of government in this country. The time may arrive when it will become absolutely necessary that it should define and limit its own functions, and profess at least to part with a portion of them to inferior powers constituted by itself. Should such a contingency ever arise while the colonies are still in our possession, an opportunity for amalgamating them in the proposed reconstruction would naturally offer itself.

But, in the first place, there is something in the plan essentially self-contradictory. If Parliament be politically omnipotent (as it is) Parliament cannot possibly abdicate its own omnipotence. No one can seriously urge, for instance, that Parliament has not legal power to repeal the Acts of Union with Scotland and Ireland. And any suggested Act of Parliament, establishing a general constitution for the colonies, resting, not on compact between two parties, but on waiving of rights by one of them-resting on concession, not on contract—would be, unavoidably, open to similar annulment by the conceding party.

This, however, may be perhaps regarded as a theoretical objection only. More to the purpose is the simple answer to the proposal (I speak now of the colonial portion of it only): It comes too late. It might have been possible to frame such a system in the earlier days of our colonial empire. Its establishment would now involve too great a change in our general institutions to be acceptable or practicable. Such a tree as this might be planted, but cannot be grafted. I cannot but agree with Mr. Hughes, in his recent article in Macmillan, on the "Anarchy of London," that, "if you want to do any" public work, especially of a constructive kind, "you must

recognise existing facts, and make the most of whatever is already occupying the ground on which you propose to build."

Other methods might be noticed, which have been more or less distinctly shadowed out by various reasoners, for converting the relation of very slight subjection, which now subsists, into one of more or less close federation. To all of them, however satisfactory to the imagination in themselves, I fear that the one overruling objection applies. They are impracticable. They would require the construction of a new and delicate machinery, which in all probability would break down under the first tension. And, if in themselves they had better promise of durability than in my belief is the case, we possess in truth no central authority-no architectonic power-which could in the first place create so vast a fabric, and, in the next place, maintain it. It is of no use forgetting, as we are too apt to do when we embark on these speculations, the nature of the instruments with which we work. We are not under the rule of a powerful and enlightened prince, or of a senate of our best and wisest men. Ours is a party Government—a Government resting on narrow Parliamentary majorities, enabled to maintain its authority only by sagacious concessions and timid devices, and never disposed, nor indeed able, to undertake schemes of internal revolutionary change unless under absolute pressure. Such a Government suits us well in many respects; but it is not a Government possessing the faculty or the disposition to try new principles and organise new institutions.

And one more consideration must be dwelt on for a moment, however unwelcome it may be to many of us. It is of no use for a statesman or a theorist to neglect or ignore the proclivities of his age, because he may disapprove of them. I take it that, of all the political tendencies of modern society, that of which the symptoms are most unmistakable is this: a general impatience of all the contrivances for establishing balances of our power which were so attractive to our forefathers; a general propensity to bringing the moving will, the primum mobile of the whole machine-that is, in English-speaking communities, the popular will as directly as possible to bear on the thing to be done. Our old constituted checks may be wearing out, but they subsist as yet; to construct new ones would, under these tendencies, be very difficult. For a century we have been content to admire that contrivance in the constitution of the United States of which I have spoken-the authority of the Supreme Court as mediator between Federal and State claims of right -as the very balance-wheel of the machine, or as the Conservative prop of a fragile democracy. Already there are strong signs in the American political world of a disposition to curtail that authority, and to render the powers of Congress more direct in their application