We shall now proceed to inquire practically, in a little detail, and in plain English, what 'clear and reasoned system' is possible. It is not profitable to tell us that the greatest of all the immense difficulties in the way of a solution of the problem of the union of Greater Britain into a Federation is a difficulty that we make ourselves: 'is the false preconception which we bring to the question, that the problem is insoluble, that no such thing ever was done or ever will be done.' On the contrary, those who are incurably sceptical of federation, owe their scepticism not to a preconception at all, but to a reasoned examination of actual schemes that have been proposed, and of actual obstacles that irresistible circumstances interpose. It is when we consider the real life, the material pursuits, the solid interests, the separate frontiers and frontier-policies of the colonies, that we perceive how deeply the notions of Mr. Seeley are tainted with vagueness and dreaminess.

The moral of Mr. Seeley's book is in substance this, that if we allow 'ourselves to be moved sensibly nearer in our thoughts and feelings to the colonies, and accustom ourselves to think of emigrants as not in any way lost to England by settling in the colonies, the result might be, first, that emigration on a vast scale might become our remedy for pauperism; and, secondly, that some organisation might gradually be arrived at which might make the whole force of the empire available in time of war' (p. 298). Regarded as a contribution, then, to that practical statesmanship which is the other side of historical study, Mr. Seeley's book contains two suggestions: emigration on a vast scale and a changed organisation. On the first not many words will be necessary. They come to this, that unless the emigration on a vast scale is voluntary, all experience shows that it will fail inevitably, absolutely, and disastrously: and next, that if it is voluntary, it will never on a vast scale, though it may in rare individual instances, set in a given direction by mere movement of our thoughts and feelings about the flag or the empire. It is not sentiment but material advantages that settle the currents of emigration. Within a certain number of years 4,500,000 of British emigrants have gone to the United States, and only 2,500,000 to the whole of the British possessions. Last year 179,000 went to the United States, and only 43,000 to Canada. The chairman of the Hudson's Bay Company the other day plainly admitted to his shareholders that 'as long as the United States possessed a prairie country and Canada did not, the former undoubtedly offered greater advantages for the poorer class of emigrants.' He would not force emigrants to go to any particular country, 'but everything else being equal, he would exercise what moral influence he could to induce emigrants to go to our own possessions' (Report in Times, November 23, 1883). The first step, therefore, is to secure that everything else shall be equal. When soil, climate, facility of acquisition, proximity to English ports, are all equalised, it will be quite time enough to hope for a change in the currents of emigration, and when that time comes the change will be wrought not by emotions of patriotic sentiment, but by calculations of prudence. No true patriot can honestly wish that it should be otherwise, for patriotism is regard for the wellbeing of the people of a country as well as affection for its flag.

Let us now turn to the more important question of some organisation by which the whole force of the empire might be made available in time of war. Our contention is not that the whole force could not, might not, or ought not to be made available. So far as these issues go, the answer would depend upon the nature and the stress of the contingencies which made resort to the whole force of the empire necessary or desirable. All that we argue for is that the result will never be reached by a standing and permanent organisation. Mr. Seeley does not himself attempt to work out any clear and reasoned system, nor was it his business to do so. Still it is our business to do what we can to take the measure of the idea which his attractive style and literary authority have again thrown into circulation in enthusiastic and unreflecting minds. Many other writers have tried to put this idea into real shape, and when we come to ask from them for further and better particulars the difficulties that come into view are insuperable.

We shall examine some of these projects, and we may as well begin with the most recent. Sir Henry Parkes, in an article just published, after the usual protestations of the sense of slight in the breasts of our kinsfolk, of the vehement desire for a closer union with the mother country, and in favour of a more definite incorporation of Australia in the realm, proceeds to set forth what we suppose to be the best practical contributions that he can think of towards promoting the given end. The 'changes in the imperial connection' which the ex-premier for New South Wales suggests are these:—1. The Australian group of colonies should be confederated, and designated in future the British States of Australia, or the British Australian State. 2. A representative council of Australia should sit in London to transact all the business between the Federation and the Imperial Government. 3. In treaties with foreign nations Australia must be consulted, so far as Australian interests may be affected, through her representative council. Sir Henry Parkes, we may remark, gives no instance of a treaty with a foreign nation in which Australian interests have been injured or overlooked. 4. Englishmen in Australia must be on an equal footing with Englishmen within the United Kingdom as recipients of marks of the royal favour; especially they should be made peers. 5. The functions of governor should be limited as much as possible to those which are discharged by the Sovereign in the present working of the Constitution, and to State ceremonies. These are the suggestions which Sir Henry Parkes throws out 'without reserve or hesitation,' as pointing to the direction in which 'well-considered changes' should take place. The familiar plan for solving the problem by the representation of the colonies in the Imperial Parliament he peremptorily repudiates. 'That,' he says, 'would be abortive from the first, and end in creating new jealousies and discontents.' What it all comes to, then, is that the sentiment of union between Englishmen here and Englishmen at the Antipodes is to be strengthened, first, by making more Knights of St. Michael and St. George; second, by a liberal creation of Victorian, Tasmanian, and New South Welsh peerages; third, by reducing the officer who represents the political link between us to a position of mere decorative nullity; and fourth, by bringing half a dozen or a score or fifty honest gentlemen many thousands of miles away from their own affairs, in order to transact business which is despatched without complaint or hindrance in a tolerably short interview once a week, or once a month, or once a quarter, between the Secretary of State and the Agent-General. If that is all, we can only say that seldom has so puny a mouse come forth from so imposing a mountain.

'The English people,' says Sir Henry Parkes, 'in Europe, in America, in Africa, in Asia, in Australasia, are surely destined for a mission beyond the work which has consumed the energies of nations throughout the buried centuries. If they hold together in the generations before us in one world-embracing empire, maintaining and propagating the principles of justice, freedom and peace, what blessings might arise from their united power to beautify and invigorate the world.' This is the eloquent expression of a lofty and generous aspiration which every good Englishman shares, and to which he will in his heart fervently respond. But the Australian statesman cannot seriously think that the maintenance and propagation of justice, freedom and peace, the beautifying and invigorating of the world, or any of the other blessings of united power, depend on the four or five devices, all of them trivial, and some of them contemptible, which figure in his project. Of all ways of gratifying a democratic community that we have ever heard of, the institution of hereditary rank seems the most singular,—supported, as we presume that rank would be, by primogeniture and landed settlements. As for the consultative council, which is an old suggestion of Lord Grey's, what is the answer to the following dilemma? If the Crown is to act on the advice of the agents then the imperial politics of any one colony must either be regulated by a vote of the majority of the members of the council—however unpalatable the decision arrived at may be to the colony affected—or else the Crown will be enabled to exercise its own discretion, and so to arrogate to itself the right to direct colonial policy (Rowe's Bonds of Disunion, 356). The simpleton in the jestbooks is made to talk of a bridge dividing the two banks of a stream. Sir Henry Parkes's plan of union would soon prove a dividing bridge in good earnest.

Sir Henry Parkes does not try to conceal from us, he rather presses upon us by way of warning, that separation from England is an event which, 'whatever surface-loyalists may say to the contrary, is unquestionably not out of the range of possibilities within the next generation.' 'There are persons in Australia, and in most of the Australian legislatures, who avowedly or tacitly favour the idea of separation.' 'In regard to the large mass of the English people in Australia,' he adds on another page, 'there can be no doubt of their genuine loyalty to the present state, and their affectionate admiration for the present illustrious occupant of the Throne. But this loyalty is nourished at a great distance, and by tens of thousands daily increasing, who have never known any land but the one dear land where they dwell. It is the growth of a semi-tropical soil, alike tender and luxuriant, and a slight thing may bruise, even snap asunder, its young tendrils.'

'The successful in adventure and enterprise,' he says with just prescience, 'will want other rewards than the mere accumulation of wealth,' and other rewards, may we add, than knighthoods and sham peerages. 'The awakening ambitions of the gifted and heroic will need fitting spheres for their honourable gratification,' and such spheres, we may be very sure, will not be found in a third-rate little consultative council, planted in a back-room in Westminster, waiting for the commands of the Secretary of State. In short, a suspicion dawns upon one's mind that this sense of coldness, this vague craving for closer bonds, this crying for a union, on the part of some colonists, is, in truth, a sign of restless malaise, which means, if it were probed to the bottom, not a desire for union at all, but a sense of fitness for independence.

There are great and growing difficulties in the matter of foreign and inter-colonial relations. But these will not be solved by a council which may be at variance with the government and majority in the colony. They are much better solved, as they arise, by a conference with the Agent for the Colonies, or, as has been done in the case of Canada, by allowing the government of the colony to take a part in the negotiations, and to settle its own terms. Fisheries, copyright, and even customs' duties, are instances in point. This is a process which will have to be carried further. Each large colony will have relations to foreign countries more and more distant from those of the mother country, and must be allowed to deal with those relations itself. How this is to be done will be a problem in each case. It will furnish a new chapter of international law. But it is a chapter of law which will grow pro re natÂ. Its growth will not be helped or forwarded by any a priori system. Any such system would be attended with all the evils of defective foresight, and would both fetter and irritate.