here is a certain legal way of avoiding its force,--a resort
to which the colonists have not failed to betake themselves at times.

Here as elsewhere there are two parties in the general politics of the
country,--one loyal to the last degree to the British throne, the other
ready at the first opportunity to cut loose from the home government,
which is so many thousands of miles away. The most important question
relating to federation seems to be that of the tariff. While New South
Wales favors a low and simple tariff, Victoria insists upon "protection"
in the fullest sense of that much-abused term. Queensland is more
liberal, and favors free-trade. This question therefore becomes an
important factor in the proposed federation; and could it be settled, no
doubt a general union would soon follow. It is clearly in accordance
with the logic of events that in the near future not only will
federation take place throughout these colonies, making them one just as
these United States are one, but their independence of the mother
country will naturally follow. That great English writer on political
economy, John Stuart Mill, says: "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." It
would seem as if Mr. Mill had these colonies of the South Pacific in
view when he expressed these ideas. The pride of empire is all-powerful,
but the growth and extent of nations, as shown in the history of the
Babylonian, Assyrian, and Roman Empires, are governed by principles
beyond their individual control. When men have builded too high the
structure topples over. The more dominion is extended the more
vulnerable it becomes. There is also, as Mr. Mill intimates, a vital
distinction between continuous or contiguous empire and empire dispersed
and separated by thousands of miles of ocean.

If there were not such a persistent spirit of rivalry existing between
the several colonies of Australia, the different railroad gauges which
have been purposely established could not be maintained for a single
month. Such obvious folly seemed inexcusable to a stra