It is because the existing arrangements between London and the several
Dominion capitals don't suit logicians that they do suit experienced
statesmen pretty well. Because these institutions can be patched as
occasion may require, they are retained for patching on occasion.
Because the loose, go-as-you-please organization of the so-called
"empire" has revealed almost incredible unity of sentiment and purpose,
practiced statesmen regard it as a prodigious success. They are mighty
shy of affiliating with any of the well-meaning doctrinaires who have
been explaining any time within the last century that the system is
essentially incoherent and absurd and urgently needs profound change
with doctrinaire improvements.

Sir Robert Borden, for instance. Some days ago he most amiably gave me a
little private talk on these matters, of course on the tacit
understanding that he was not to be "interviewed" as for close reporting
of his informal sentences. He was, by the way, apparently in robust
health, as if, like Mr. Asquith, of a temperament to flourish under the
heaviest responsibilities ever laid on a Prime Minister in his own
country. No statesman could be of aspect and utterance less hurried, nor
more pleasant, lucid, cautious, disposed to give a friendly caller large
and accurate information briefly, while disclosing nothing at variance
with or unfindable in his published speeches. Of some of them he
repeated apposite slices; to others he referred for further
enlightenment as to his views on imperial federation. Really he was
neither secretive nor newly informative. The Premier of Canada at any
time is governed, much as I have endeavored to show how the electors
are, by that natural, instinctive course of the general loyal Canadian
mind, which constitutes "the situation" and controls Governmental
proceedings on behalf of the public.

Well meaning persons who allege Sir Robert to have either favored or
disfavored imperial federation have been inaccurate. Precisely what
imperial federation may be nobody knows, for the simple and sufficient
reason that nobody has ever sketched or elaborated a scheme in that
regard which appeared or appears desirable as a change from the
all-compelling situation. What has never been adopted as desirable
cannot be termed practicable in statesmen's language. To declare an
untried scheme impracticable might be an error of rashness.

The idea of federating the empire has long attracted Sir Robert,