* I am speaking here of the adoption of this improved policy, not,
of course, of its original suggestion. The honour of having been its
earliest champion belongs unquestionably to Mr. Roebuck.

  It is now a fixed principle of the policy of Great Britain,
professed in theory and faithfully adhered to in practice, that her
colonies of European race, equally with the parent country, possess
the fullest measure of internal self-government. They have been
allowed to make their own free representative constitutions by
altering in any manner they thought fit the already very popular
constitutions which we had given them. Each is governed by its own
legislature and executive, constituted on highly democratic
principles. The veto of the Crown and of Parliament, though
nominally reserved, is only exercised (and that very rarely) on
questions which concern the empire, and not solely the particular
colony. How liberal a construction has been given to the distinction
between imperial and colonial questions is shown by the fact that
the whole of the unappropriated lands in the regions behind our
American and Australian colonies have been given up to the
uncontrolled disposal of the colonial communities; though they
might, without injustice, have been kept in the hands of the
Imperial Government, to be administered for the greatest advantage
of future emigrants from all parts of the empire. Every colony has
thus as full power over its own affairs as it could have if it were
a member of even the loosest federation; and much fuller than would
belong to it under the Constitution of the United States, being free
even to tax at its pleasure the commodities imported from the mother
country. Their union with Great Britain is the slightest kind of
federal union; but not a strictly equal federation, the mother country
retaining to itself the powers of a Federal Government, though reduced
in practice to their very narrowest limits. This inequality is, of
course, as far as it goes, a disadvantage to the dependencies, which
have no voice in foreign policy, but are bound by the decisions of the
superior country. They are compelled to join England in war, without
being in any way consulted previous to engaging in it.

  Those (now happily not a few) who think that justice is as binding
on communities as it is on individuals, and that men are not warranted
in doing to other countries, for the supposed benefit of their own
country, what they would not be justified in doing to other men for
their own benefit- feel even this limited amount of constitutional
subordination on the part of the colonies to be a violation of
principle, and have often occupied themselves in looking out for means
by which it may be avoided. With this view it has been proposed by
some that the colonies should return representatives to the British
legislature; and by others, that the powers of our own, as well as
of their Parliaments, should be confined to internal policy, and
that there should be another representative body for foreign and
imperial concerns, in which last the dependencies of Great Britain
should be represented in the same manner, and with the same
completeness, as Great Britain itself. On this system there would be
perfectly equal federation between the mother country and her
colonies, then no longer dependencies.

  The feelings of equity, and conceptions of public morality, from
which these suggestions emanate, are worthy of all praise; but the
suggestions themselves are so inconsistent with rational principles of
government that it is doubtful if they have been seriously accepted as
a possibility by any reasonable thinker. Countries separated by half
the globe do not present the natural conditions for being under one
government, or even members of one federation. If they had
sufficiently the same interests, they have not, and never can have,
a sufficient habit of taking counsel together. They are not part of
the same public; they do not discuss and deliberate in the same arena,
but apart, and have only a most imperfect knowledge of what passes
in the minds of one another. They neither know each other's objects,
nor have confidence in each other's principles of conduct. Let any
Englishman ask himself how he should like his destinies to depend on
an assembly of which one-third was British American, and another third
South African and Australian. Yet to this it must come if there were
anything like fair or equal representation; and would not every one
feel that the representatives of Canada and Australia, even in matters
of an imperial character, could not know, or feel any sufficient
concern for, the interests, opinions, or wishes of English, Irish, and
Scotch? Even for strictly federative purposes the conditions do not
exist which we have seen to be essential to a federation. England is
sufficient for her own protection without the colonies; and would be
in a much stronger, as well as more dignified position, if separated
from them, than when reduced to be a single member of an American,
African, and Australian confederation. Over and above the commerce
which she might equally enjoy after separation, England derives little
advantage, except in prestige, from her dependencies; and the little
she does derive is quite outweighed by the expense they cost her,
and the dissemination they necessitate of her naval and military
force, which in case of war, or any real apprehension of it,
requires to be double or treble what would be needed for the defence
of this country alone.

  But though Great Britain could do perfectly well without her
colonies, and though on every principle of morality and justice she
ought to consent to their separation, should the time come when, after
full trial of the best form of union, they deliberately desire to be
dissevered- there are strong reasons for maintaining the present
slight bond of connection, so long as not disagreeable to the feelings
of either party. It is a step, as far as it goes, towards universal
peace, and general friendly cooperation among nations. It renders
war impossible among a large number of otherwise independent
communities; and moreover hinders any of them from being absorbed into
a foreign state, and becoming a source of additional aggressive