it would be of great advantage to have in the standing
committee of colonial privy councillors which he proposes a body which
would both give it information as to the wishes and opinions of the
colonies, and assist in conveying to the colonies authentic
explanation of the reasons for the measures adopted. That the agents
from Newfoundland could give the Government information is certain,
but what light could the agents from New Zealand throw on the fishery
question? Then apply the case to the proposal of a Federation. As the
question raises discussions with the United States and with France, it
is an imperial matter, and would be referred to the Federal Council.
That body, in spite of its miscellaneous composition, would be no
better informed of the merits of the case than the present cabinet,
nor do we know why it should be more likely to come to a wise
decision. However that might be, we cannot easily believe that the
merchant of Cape Town or the sugar-planter in Queensland, or the
coffee-grower in Fiji, would willingly pay twopence or fourpence of
income tax for a war with France, however authentic might be the
explanations given to him of the reasons why the fishermen of Nova
Scotia had destroyed the huts and the drying stages of French rivals
on a disputed foreshore. We fail to see why the fact of the authentic
explanation being conveyed by his own particular delegate should be
much more soothing to him than if they were conveyed by the Secretary
of State, for, after all, as Mr. Seeley will assure him, Lord Derby
and Sir Michael Hicks-Beach are brothers and fellow-countrymen. No, we
may depend upon it that it would be a _mandat imperatif_ on every
federal delegate not to vote a penny for any war, or preparation for
war, that might arise from the direct or indirect interests of any
colony but his own.

I have said little of the difficulties arising from the vast
geographic distances that separate these great outlying communities
from one another, and from the mother country. But those difficulties
exist, and they are in one sense at the root of others more important
than themselves. 'Countries separated by half the globe,' says Mill in
his excellent chapter on the government of dependencies by a free
state, 'do not present the natural conditions for being 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 ar