The colonists, as a rule, are ardently loyal, and those who emigrate to colonies recall to themselves in the reproduction of the institutions to which they have been accustomed the scenes and the ties they have left behind them. They love to think that they have not abandoned their country, but merely removed to another portion of it. The young persons born in the colonies are taught to venerate and love the mother-country. Yet the idea prevails alike amongst those who are born in or who emigrate to the colonies that the time will come when these will be independent. If this assumption is wrong, and it is not meant to break up the Empire, is it not vicious to educate these young communities to a false view? And if this false view continue, if this national independence always looms in sight, must not the time come when it will be imperatively demanded, and even the most trifling incident at any moment may cause the demand to arise? Nor is the idea that the colonies are growing into nations confined to the colonists. The originators of colonial constitutions had it largely in their minds. It finds favourite expression in after-dinner speeches, and not unfrequently in the House of Commons, when speakers launch into patronising remarks describing the colonies as young nations. From that point of view which regards the colonies as integral and inseperable parts of the Empire, prognostications of the kind are little short of treasonable. They are, and should be, open to the same exception as would be taken in the several countries concerned to advocating the separation of Ireland from Great Britain, Hungary from Austria, Alsace from Germany, or the reinstatement of Poland as an independent kingdom.

A settlement one way or other should be arrived at, so that the nature of their future position should be made known to these communities. If the colonies are to understand that they have not, and will not have, the power to deprive the Sovereign of these realms of portions of her dominions, and that every inch of territory is dear to the Crown, let it be so declared. There is one very difficult point to be consideredwould the colonies have the right to complain of a decision which would deprive them of the prospect of future independence? If the question were put before

them of immediate independence or continuing to remain with the Empire, the election would probably be favourable to the latter. But a feeling more or less strong has grown up, that independence has been placed at the disposal of the colonies, and it might be to some extent felt that they have a right to the choice. In other words, the education in the direction of independence already alluded to has made progress, and the question is, ought it to be recog nized? There are those who will say that the very fact of this question having to be asked is a proof that it would be better to leave the subject alone. We might agree with this view if we held that ultimate separation was a conclusion to be desired. But if the nation should, as we believe, recoil in horror from such an eventuality, it is clear that the longer the impression is allowed to continue that the colonies have the right to expect future independence, the more difficult will it be to remove or deal with it.

Here it may be aptly asked, why alone of all nations is Great Britain to hold her dominions by ties so slender, that their disruption is virtually invited? In the greatest of her difficulties, and in spite of all temptation, Spain has refused to relax her grasp on Cuba. The United States, carved by force of arms from out another nation, was not long in learning the lesson that the first duty a country owes to herself is to preserve her own integrity. Hence the later, and perhaps the grander, of her two great wars. Is it because Great Britain, having first provoked the war by her own misconduct, failed to come off victorious in the struggle, that she is for all time to come to be so cowed, so timorous, as to submit to her Empire being broken up by any one who succeeds in persuading her subjects in any part of her dominions that they will do better to set up on their own account? If Great Britain is indeed to become a secondrate power in the scale of nations, let her people have the gratification of carrying with them into obscurity the recollection that they renounced the colonies, not these renounced, Great Britain.

Before considering the details of a scheme of confederation, it would be well to further pursue the point of the right of the mothercountry to impress it on her colonies. It might be considered expedient to give to

the colonies separately the power of deciding within a definite and early time whether each would join the confederation or prefer an independent career; but it is to be doubted whether the colonies have the right to demand such an option. True, the acts of constitution seem to lead to future independence; true, such an idea was, in a measure, present in the minds of their framers; and true, moreover, that it has been offensively pressed on the colonies by the doubts freely expressed as to whether they are sources of strength or weakness to the Empire. But, on the other hand, property is property, and the right to it ought not to be prejudiced by inexact and inferential obligations. The designs of a political school, and the quiet success with which such designs have been worked out, cannot be held to bind or commit those who have not been a party to them. The property of the Sovereign in the dependencies of the Empire should be more firmly asserted in consequence of any doubts thrown upon it. To give to the colonies this option would in itself be an admission of a right to which, notwithstanding they have been deceived, they can scarcely be said to be entitled. But there is a limit to all things, and if they are too long allowed to remain under a false impression, something of a right must grow up.

If the union is to continue only so long as both the colonies and the mother-country are contented with it, if the mothercountry or any colony at any time can end the connection, then it is impossible that the union can be more than temporary. The time must come when one side or another will see, or think it sees, an advantage in separation. The doctrine that the union should depend for its continuance upon the pleasure of either party to it, affords a comfortable excuse for inaction. Meanwhile it serves the purpose of those statesmen who strongly desire to see the colonies abandoned, and do their best in various ways to promote that end without declaring their purpose, without the knowledge of their Sovereign or the support of their country. There is no more disagreeable phase of existence than that of a feeling that a quiet but powerful movement is being exerted in a direction contrary to one's wishes, but with such concealment and denial that it is nearly impossible to rouse

others to the sense that a counteracting movement is necessary. Like the Italian dungeon that slowly contracted round its inmate till it crushed him to death, but the diminishing volume of which it was difficult to perceive, so are many subjects crushed into unwelcome shape by a force unapparent in its action until the effect approaches completion. A union, lasting only as long as all parties to it please, means a union open to be insidiously undermined by opponents, means one liable to be broken by innumerable accidents, means one which even its friends assist to destroy: for, in contemplating the contingency of its future disturbance, they shape their course to meet that consequence. If the union is desirable, it should not be open to question. The institutions, the policy, the legislation, the habits, and the thoughts of the people should grow round and about till the unity of the Empire becomes embodied in the inmost affections and traditions of the nation.

It will be very suggestive to consider what are the prevailing ideas concerning the colonies entertained in the mother-country. It would be idle to pretend to determine, with even approximate accuracy, the numerical strength of the supporters of the various views. But the attempt to do so will have its use; for the proportions can be guessed with sufficient exactness to lead to the conclusion that the present position of public thought upon the subject is eminently unsatisfactory. Probably two-fifths of the population of the United Kingdom have friends or relations in one or more of the colonies. Inasmuch as these two-fifths comprise, in great measure, the adult population, it is a larger proportion of the thinking population than at the first glance appears. But only a small number of those who have friends or relations in the colonies have an accurate knowledge of more than one colony. Even the particular colony to which their connections belong is often known to them but slightly. A substantial knowledge of the colonies is mainly confined to those who have resided in them, or who have political or business relations with them. But interest in the colonies is not confined to those who have a knowledge of them. ledge of them. A very large proportion of the adult working classes hold the colonies in high, though mystical, veneration. The

colonies, to them, are places where, if they ever resolve to leave their native towns or villages, they may find all the comforts denied to them at home. They think of the colonies as lands of plenty-as lands where the labouring man is held in high estimation-as lands where a career is open to him, where he can become an employer instead of a servant, above all, where he can become an owner of land, and where his children will be well educated and have great positions within their reach. For the higher classes, the colonies have less attraction. To them, the colonies are lands in which it may or may not be desirable to try to make money. Some emigrate with the hope of bettering their positions, but hoping, also, to return to the mother-country; although it is commonly the case that they remain there by preference after they have earned the means to live at home. A great many who never visit the colonies try to make money through their business connections with them.

But, whatever may be the feelings entertained concerning the colonies themselves, the minds of the vast mass of the people are quite colourless on the question of the relations between the mother-country and the colonies. They recollect that disintegration was talked of some years since, and are under the impression that it was abandoned on account of its unpopularity. They think it was a freak of a small body of politicians, and that it was finally disposed of by the Conservative reaction. They are less disposed to struggle about it now than they were seven years ago, when the question was more before them. They have no knowledge of the changes constitutional government has worked in the colonies. If they were questioned on the subject, they would probably say England is essentially a colonizing country, and they suppose will continue to hold her dependencies. Why should she give them up? If she could afford them before steam and electricity made communication easy, why should she now get rid of them? Even of those who most prize the colonies, few will look upon the subject as pressing. Of those who really do consider the question, and with whom, therefore, its practical decision rests, a powerful section believes that it would be well, both for the mother-country and the colonies, that the connection should

be severed. They think that to propose the severance would be unpopular, but that, if the matter be left alone, the result will work itself out. A much larger section shares the belief as to what the result will be, without desiring it. They look upon the matter as decided, and they think it only a question of time when these young nations will declare themselves. The zealous longers for separation, and those who believe it must come whether they like it or not, compose nearly all of those who have thought about the question. There remains a few very ardent men who long for confederation, who believe it to be possible, but who hesitate to commit themselves to the course which must be taken when it is desired to initiate a great political crusade. They are not wanting in earnestness. It may be they are not agreed as to what is to be done; and it is useless to preach a theory without indicating the practice that should flow from it.

The case here presented is less hopeless for confederation than at first sight might appear. If the vast body of the people, whose minds are now colourless on the question, are favourably predisposed to retaining the colonies, there is good material to work on if the case be vigorously taken up. Given those who are willing to become advocates of the cause, they will find multitudes ready to follow them; and large as their object is, they may reduce it to the simple proposition that it is the duty of the mother-country to declare that she holds, and will hold, the colonies as part of her territories-that throughout the Empire the people must grow up in that belief, and must shape their legislation, their institutions, and their aspirations accordingly.

The question of whether confederation is desirable is another way of asking if it is desirable to retain the colonies. But although the declaration of the unity of the Empire must pave the way to confederation, it is not to be supposed that the work of confederation will end with such declaration. When once the unity is declared, a serviceable machinery must follow for giving to the colonies a share in the government of the Empire proportioned to their importance. What might have been without the constitutions the colonies enjoy it is useless now to consider. They have been made in large measure self-governing

This

said that to the great mass of the people of this country the colonies have an engrossing and peculiar fascination. It is not to be supposed that this arises from a conviction or impression that they are better governed than the mother-country. The colonies have not the leisured classes that really govern the United Kingdom. The masses generally are not inclined to undervalue the ability and unselfishness of the leisured classes. To those whose very existence depends on daily toil, the charms of a life to which all toil is unnecessary assumes an exaggerated character. The spectacle, then, is most forcible which constantly meets the view of the workers by compulsion-the spectacle of work, hard, absorbing, laborious work, performed by those who, but for ambition, a love of doing good, and an innate sense of the noblesse oblige, might lead lives of Epicurean ease. voluntary hard work is not confined to those holding positions of conspicuous power. The willingness to labour, the desire to do good, the determined mastery of special knowledge for purposes of philanthropy, the devotion of time and means, and the subordination of ordinary engagements to the pursuit of many varied objects, are sufficiently common to make the bulk of the people think they are not unfortunate in the classes which mainly wield the governing power. It would be an injustice to the discernment of the people to suppose that they are of opinion that, amidst the absorbing pursuit in the colonies of pecuniary gain, abler governing men are to be found. They may be pleased at the idea that the government of the colonies is more generally distributed amongst all classes of the populatton, but they do not feel that, therefore, that government is abler. It is the space, the unoccupied room, that the colonies enjoy, which speaks to the hardworked denizens of a densely-populated country. Next to Belgium, England, in proportion to its area, is the most heavily populated country in the world. It has a

population per square mile nearly double that of India and Japan, and more than three and a half times that of the Chinese Empire. Taking Great Britain and Ireland together, the population per square mile, though much less than that of England and Wales alone, exceeds very much the population per square mile of any country in the world except Belgium. Can it be wondered at that the colonies have such charms to those who most suffer from the crowding? The colonies are the safety-valves of the poorer classes, and the affection which they feel for them is to be justified by logical considerations. Recent developments, which point to the permanent loss of foreign markets for many different articles of British manufacture, have increased the hardships of the crowded state of the country, and much enlarged the desire to seek new homes in the colonies. Of course this desire is controlled by the cost of emigration. It is the fashion to speak of the vast improvement in the condition of the labouring classes. In instituting a comparison between the then and now, no consideration seems to be given to the growth of new wants. If a similar comparison were to be made between the past and present conditions of the middle classes and of the upper classes, it would be recognized that so many new necessities had become inseparable from their lives that the requirements which sufficed for their predecessors would be insufferably insufficient for them. The lower classes are amenable to the same argument. For them, also, new necessities and wants have arisen, as sternly demanded for their comfort as were the recognized wants of bygone times. As man continues to live, his wants increase with the improved knowledge of how to supply them. The denial of the new wants inflicts as much hardship as the denial of the old. A great deal of the so-called improvement in the condition of the working classes has to be qualified by the consideration of the demands necessary to insure the same amount of comfort and happiness. If an abstract standard could be set up, we might compare the condition of the working classes now with that of the early inhabitants of the country, who found in the woods and forests a larder and wardrobe, with which they were satisfied till they learned to require something better.

The dread of the producing power and the population of the mother-country being reduced is unreasonable, if the subjects of the nation, their wealth, industries, and resources are merely transferred from one part of the Empire to another. It is otherwise if the mother-country has no external possessions, and the wealth and population that she loses pass to other countries, making them proportionally more and her less powerful.

The landed proprietors are generally supposed to feel little interest in the colonies, and to be opposed to emigration to them. At first sight such a feeling seems natural, but on reflection its shortsightedness is apparent. The emigration of agricultural labourers may, it is true, raise the rate of agricultural labour, or, perhaps it is more correct to say, prevent it from falling. The landed proprietors, again, are not likely to be swayed by those sentiments of personal liking for the colonies so deeply sunk in the minds of the working classes. A colony may become the home of the working man and his family. The landed proprietor The landed proprietor does not look forward to anything of the kind. Even if some junior members of his family go to the colonies, their ambition in commencing is to make enough money to be able to live at home, although frequently, as has been said, a residence in the colonies changes this feeling to one of preference for the new home. But if the landed proprietors have not the same personal interest in the colonies as that possessed by the working classes, they have indirectly a very deep interest, and one with which the coming years are likely to vividly impress them. The maintenance of those institutions they most prize, the safety of their order, of their lands and their family possessions, depend upon the colonies remaining as outlets for surplus home population. If England is to be kept within herself, it cannot be long before the conditions of land tenure are rigidly scrutinized, and the question asked if the na⚫tion has not the right to buy up the land for redivision into smaller holdings. But revolutionists would vainly raise such questions whilst the means to become possessors of estates in the Empire is more open to the poorer classes of to-day than it was to those who in times past, from the humblest beginning, founded some of the greatest families

in the country. The landed proprietor should see in the colonial outlet his best guarantee of safety, and, with the humblest classes, should sturdily resist the decolonizing policy of the international school. Lord Beaconsfield has at various times vigorously asserted the common interests that bind together the extreme classes-the landed and the labouring classes. Probably in no sense is this more remarkably true than in that grand interest which the labouring and landed classes jointly have in upholding the colonies against the machinations of the politicians who reduce everything to a pounds, shillings, and pence denomination, and whose chief notion of the future is compound interest.

The probable increase of the population of the colonies is a subject full of interest. In a masterly speech recently delivered by Sir Hercules Robinson, the Governor of New South Wales, on the subject of intercolonial federation, some calculations were given as to the increase of the population of Australia. Sir Hercules is of opinion that he is below the mark in the following estimate:

Supposing, however, that only the recent New maintained, the population of this continent at that South Wales increase of four per cent. annually is rate at the end of the present century-twenty-five years hence-will be over 5,000,000; twenty-five years later it will be 12,500,000; while in the year 1950 it will be 31,250,000, which was the population of the United Kingdom by the last census taken in 1871.'

Mr. Forster believes he will be within the mark in estimating the population of the British North American, the Australasian, and the South African colonies at the end of this century at 15,000,000, and accepts as a certainty that before the middle of next century 'our colonies within the temperate zones' will outnumber the population of the United Kingdom. Sir Hercules and Mr. Forster are both moderate in their prognostications, and we venture to predict that their estimates will be immensely exceeded if, in the meanwhile, the colonies are constituted inalienable portions of the Empire. In the face of a declining foreign trade, it is of the utmost importance to commercial Great Britain to cultivate the colonial trade. But it is by some denied that the trade follows the flag. We are of those who believe otherwise. It is incon