negation; who have faith enough in the methods and in the future of Science to feel confident that the same humble, candid, persistent collection and colligation of facts-without disdain of the smallest things or fear of the hardest-which in one century has so changed our outlook on the world, may be rewarded hereafter by the opening of horizons wider still,—by a more indisputable insight, a more assured penetration into the chief concerns of man.'

6

THE FEDERAL STATES OF THE WORLD.

'No boy,' said Mr. Forster in 1875, ought to leave school, either at home or in the colonies, without knowing what the British empire is. If he fully gains that knowledge, I think he will not seldom draw the inference that the British empire ought to last, and determine that, as far as in him lies, he will do what he can to insure that it shall last.'

Since the passing of the last Reform Bill in 1867, and since the opinions of the working classes, into whose hands the chief political power was then transferred, have made themselves felt, a wondrous change in the common notions held respecting the connection of Great Britain and her colonies has taken place. The working men of England, so far from wishing that the colonies should be cast off, were the first who raised their voices and signed a petition containing 100,000 signatures of the working men of London against the severance. Up to that date it was the fashion to hold that the colonies should separate from us; but now each party in the State is vieing with the other in protesting that nothing is so important in their eyes as that Great and Greater Britain should remain united. Lord Derby, as Secretary of State for the Colonies, said recently (3rd of March):

Numbers of the best of our artisans make their way to the colonies in the hope of improving their position, and amongst the higher classes there is a warm and keen interest in colonial affairs. It is possible that some may have thought that by granting self-government to the colonies we should gradually detach them from the mother country, but I do not believe that at this time, or for twenty years past, any man has looked upon the colonies as a burden to the empire, or that it was desirable that any of them should secede.

And on the same occasion Sir Hercules Robinson, one of the most able and experienced of our colonial administrators, observed that a great change had come over public opinion since he entered the colonial service thirty years ago, and now almost every one advocated the retention of our colonies, and the promotion of a closer union between them and the mother country. What all should strive for was to devise means for such a close political union as would enable millions upon millions of Anglo-Canadians and Anglo-Australians to advance in national life, and at the same time to remain members of the great empire to which it was their pride and privilege to belong. He believed that before long there would have to be constituted an imperial parliament, controlling an assemblage of federalised States, each possessing the fullest measure of home rule.

It would be a mistake, then, to conclude (as some colonists do) that because the ordinary educated Englishman' at home has up to this time remained ignorant of technical details concerning them, therefore he does not care for the whole of the British dominions, but only for one-sixty-fourth part of them, which is the proportion the area of the British Isles bears to that of the empire. He cannot help caring for this' expansion of England' which has been going on for 200 years and is still continuing, and even on a more extended scale than ever within the last fifty years. An Englishman's sympathies cannot but be stirred when he sees and appreciates what his brethren and race have done beyond the seas. But does he even then fully appreciate the matter in its political aspect? That is the question. With the pressure of population at home, the inherent energy of our race, not only physically and materially, but in all that goes to give healthiness of political and moral life, is ever forcing itself into new outlets, and has driven millions to emigrate to territories happily possessed by Great Britain in the temperate regions both of the northern and southern hemispheres, where, industrious, persevering, and imbued with love of orderly freedom, they have established themselves.

But has it been sufficiently remembered by some of us at home that the sons of England who left her shores to enrich and develop her dominions by colonisation are still an essential part and parcel of our stock and nation? Too often, in the midst of the bustle of our island life, as soon as our countrymen have gone, it has been true that out of sight they were also out of mind, except to their artisan relatives in every town and village of the land: there they are remembered, and with these they still keep up active intercourse. They, on the other hand, as was very natural, have felt always, wherever they went, that they were British still. One group of English possessions-the six colonies to the east of the Hudson-by our earlier colonists was called New England, its neighbour New Jersey, another, New Scotland, a fourth, by later colonists, and in another hemisphere, New Wales, and yet a sixth and seventh, although the British flag has ceased for a season to cover them, New Ireland, New Caledonia, and New Hebrides; and to two of the richest provinces in the southern hemisphere, Victoria and Queensland, whither our sons have swarmed, they gave the name of that sovereign whose sway, as heartily and loyally in the new country as in the old, they accept and revere; while of the counties and towns both in Canada and Australasia that repeat the echoes and recall the memories of counties, of towns, and of statesmen left behind in Britain, the number is simply endless. In this sense, at any rate, Nemo potest exuere patriam.

And all this has been gradually and steadily going on until now the question demands prompt and statesmanlike solution, 'What are to VOL. XVI.-No. 89.

H

be the future political relations of Great Britain and these her colonies?' Are Englishmen resident in them, as much as those. resident in Britain, to be admitted to an equal share in the political constitution of the empire, and in the burdens, as well as the privileges, thereby entailed? Are we at home willing to concede the first to them? are they for their part willing to undertake the second? Or are they on their side not ready for, are we on the other not desirous of entering into, such a federal partnership? What shall we do? There is no middle or half-way course; it is neither possible to continue as we are, to stand still, or to drift in indecision. Either we must now be united to them, and they to us, in a closer political union than yet exists, or we must each be free to separate and hold on our rival though friendly careers.

If we say that we wish to keep the British dominions one as far as all foreign or external powers are concerned, and yet with all its various parts free and independent for every local purpose, we know what we want to arrive at. And there is only one road by which this can best be attained, and that is by knitting the English-speaking members of the British realm into one federated Union. It is, however, no new experiment that the seekers after such union advocate. The federal is one of the oldest forms of government known, and its adaptability to the largest as well as to the smallest states is shown in all political formations of late years. States in the New and in the Old World, all in their aggregation, alike show ever a stronger tendency to adopt it. Already all the central states of Europe are federal-Switzerland, Germany, Austria; and if ever the various Sclav principalities in south-eastern Europe--the Serb, the Albanian, the Rouman, the Bulgar, and the Czech-are to combine, it will probably be (as Mr. Freeman so long ago as 1862 remarked) under a federal form,-though whether under Russian or Austrian auspices, or neither, remains to be seen. In America such form of government presents two of its most striking developments-one being the United States, and the other, north of the lakes, the Canadian Dominion.

England and Scotland were federally united from 1603 to 1707; Great Britain and Ireland were so united from 1782 to 1800; each formed one state in all their relations with other powers, while they retained the most perfect independence in all internal matters; they kept their own laws, their own constitutions, their own national debts and custom-dues, and a distinct administration of the ordinary government. It is, therefore, but an adaptation of older forms to the growing necessities of the United Kingdom that is now called for,an enlargement on the lines of the old constitution.' Although the relations between England and Scotland, where certain points are reserved under the terms of a treaty between two independent kingdoms, still make a slight approach to the federal idea; and although

the relations between the United Kingdom and the colonies approach more closely to a federal connection, they both yet differ essentially from it. The colony has the same internal independence as the state that is a member of a federation, but it differs in having no voice or control in the general concerns of the whole. The present relation of the colonies to Great Britain is not a federal, it is still, in a measure, even with their local parliaments, a dependent relation. Each of the seven provinces of Canada, each of the seven of Australasia, have their local parliaments already. But, the parliament of the United Kingdom undertakes not only the local legislation of the three kingdoms; it also discusses and controls the relations of the whole of the British dominions with foreign powers. Very far, however, is the parliament of the United Kingdom from performing this herculean task which has grown upon it. If the legislation concerning the local affairs of the three kingdoms were devolved to local parliaments, time would thus be gained for paying that attention to home legislation which has been notoriously long wanted. What is required, then, is to adapt the present constitution to the basis of a British federation; on the colonial side we have the local parliaments, we must give them share in the imperial parliament; on our side we have the imperial, we must give ourselves local parliaments. There would be one central representative parliament for all the self-governing colonies in union with Great Britain. Local questions of all kinds must be relegated, with us as they are now with them, to local parliaments, and local English, Scotch, Welsh, London, and Irish parliaments (or even, if you will, local parliaments for smaller areas even than these; or, on the other hand, with one local parliament for the three combined) will deal with local English, Scotch, and Irish questions. The imperial parliament would, under such arrangement, of course deal only with imperial questions, that is with the supreme questions of peace and war, foreign relations, diplomacy and consular agencies, the defence of the whole against all external foes (army and navy, forts, garrisons, arsenals, naval stations and dockyards), India and the crown colonies, foreign and intercolonial trade, postal and telegraphic communication, with everything, in fact, affecting the interests of the whole as a whole. relation to all such great, national, and fundamental subjects, the colonists of our own race, lineage, and language, living on British soil and under the British flag, remain to this day as unrepresented as if they were aliens.

In

Only thus in England shall we be able to carry out those social reforms we stand in such need of; only thus, on the other hand, shall we insure for ourselves a lasting and durable peace and freedom from entanglement in greater responsibilities abroad. It would be a happy day for the Peace Society,' writes Mr. John Morley, that should give the colonies a veto on imperial war!' And as the unification of