3 15th Jan.
'Tue question of Imperial Federation,—to which in one of its aspects we recently referted,—is becoming more than ever a topic of the time, in England at all events. Bunt, as Lord Rosebery, its chief exponent, was reluctantly' com led to admit in his speech last November, it is not, so far, a practical question. As a matter of sentiment all subjects of Her Majesty, of Anglo: Saxon race at least, would like to feel themselves units in a homogeneous British Empire; but as a matter of profit it is altogether utopian to sup: pose that certain provincial legislatures bitten with a mania for protection wil consent to a Customs Union, while it is quite certain that each colony or group of colonies (governed as they all are by a democracy) will continue to subordinate Imperial ends to its own private interests. The agitation against Chinese immigration into Australia is a noted example, on which it is hardly necessary, to dwell here. The proposal that colonial delegates should sit in the Imperial Parliament (though approximating to the system obtaining for the colonies of France) Lord Rosebery rightly regarded as for the present ini-practicable. His one suggestion did indeed involve the assembly of colonial representatives in London, being as it was for a periodical Colonial Congress, but, unquestionably useful as such a congress would be, it would not rapidly advance Lord Rosebery's aim, the real amalgamation of the Empire.
It is strange that in the discussions that have taken place on this important subject no reference has been made to the eminently practical scheme for securing federal union proposed more than thirty years ago by that acute observer, the late Mr. T. T. Meadows, This is in effect to apply to the provinces (for such our colonies are) of the British Empire the system of competitive examinations for imperial appointments which exists, and has for two thousand years successfully existed in China. He would not, of course, slavishly follow the Chinese exemplar, but while preserving the spirit would adapt the working to the modern requirements of the Empire. His argument seems thoroughly sound, China, as we know, is by no means a single homo-generous state, but rather a congeries of separate states, speaking languages which, though as fundamentally connected are yet as mutually unintelligible
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.