als met no support. "It is absolutely
impracticable," was Laurier's verdict. "Any scheme of representation--no
matter what you call it, parliament or council--of the overseas
Dominions, must give them so very small a representation that it would
be practically of no value," declared Premier Morris of Newfoundland.
"It is not a practical scheme," Premier Fisher of Australia agreed;
"our present system of responsible government has not broken down." "The
creation of some body with centralized authority over the whole Empire,"
Premier Botha of South Africa cogently insisted, "would be a step
entirely antagonistic to the policy of Great Britain which has been so
successful in the past .... It is the policy of decentralization which
has made the Empire--the power granted to its various peoples to govern
themselves." Even Premier Asquith of the United Kingdom declared the
proposals "fatal to the very fundamental conditions on which our empire
has been built up and carried on."

Stronger than any logic was the presence of Louis Botha in the
conferences of 1907 and 1911. On the former occasion it was only five
years since he had been in arms against Great Britain. The courage and
vision of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman in granting full and immediate
self-government to the conquered Boer republics had been justified by
the results. Once more freedom proved the only enduring basis of empire.
Botha's task in attempting to make Boer and Briton work together, first
in the Transvaal, and, after 1910, in the Union of South Africa, had not
been an easy one. Attacked by extremists from both directions, he
faced much the same difficulties as Laurier, and he found in Laurier's
friendship, counsel, and example much that stood him in good stead in
the days of stress to come.

Not less important than the relations with the United Kingdom in this
period were the relations with the United States. The Venezuela episode
was the turning point in the relations between the United States and the
British Empire. Both in Washington and in London men had been astounded
to find themselves on the verge of war. The danger passed, but the shock
awoke thousands to a realization of all that the two peoples had in
common and to the need of concerted effort to remove the sources
of friction. Then hard on the heels of this episode followed the
Spanish-American War.* Not the least of its by-products was a remarkable
improvement in the relations of the English-