expediency; but law, as worked out on English principles in all the
dependencies of the empire and countries of English origin, as
understood by Blackstone, Dicey, Story, Kent, and other great masters of
constitutional and legal learning, gives the best possible guarantee for
the security of institutions in a country of popular government.

In an Appendix to this history I have given comparisons in parallel
columns between the principal provisions of the federal constitutions of
the Canadian Dominion, and the Australian Commonwealth. In studying
carefully these two systems we must be impressed by the fact that the
constitution of Canada appears more influenced by the spirit of English
ideas than the constitution of Australia, which has copied some features
of the fundamental law of the United States. In the preamble of the
Canadian British North America act we find expressly stated "the desire
of the Canadian provinces to be federally united into one Dominion under
the crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, with a
constitution similar in principle to that of the United Kingdom," while
the preamble of the Australian constitution contains only a bald
statement of an agreement "to unite in one indissoluble federal
Commonwealth under the crown," When we consider the use of
"Commonwealth"--a word of republican significance to British ears--as
well as the selection of "state" instead of "province," of "house of
representatives" instead of "house of commons," of "executive council"
instead of "privy council," we may well wonder why the Australians, all
British by origin and aspiration, should have shown an inclination to
deviate from the precedents established by the Canadian Dominion, which,
though only partly English, resolved to carve the ancient historic names
of the parent state on the very front of its political structure.

As the several States of the Commonwealth have full control of their own
constitutions, they may choose at any moment to elect their own
governors as in the States of the American Union, instead of having them
appointed by the crown as in Canada. We see also an imitation of the
American constitution in the principle which allots to the central
government only certain enumerated powers, and leaves the residuary
power of legislation to the States. Again, while the act provides for a
high and other federal courts, the members of which are to be appointed
and removed as in Canada by t