of an imperial union now existing in the
world. Her Majesty, as common head, is the one link which binds the
empire together and connects with each other every constituent member.
The Indian Empire and certain military dependencies require no further
notice in these pages; but a summary of our various forms of colonial
government is required to complete our knowledge of the forms of Home
Rule possibly applicable to Ireland.

The colonies, in relation to their forms of government, may be
classified as follows:--

I. Crown colonies, in which laws may be made by the Governor alone, or
with the concurrence of a Council nominated by the Crown.

2. Colonies possessing representative institutions, but not responsible
government, in which the Crown has only a veto on legislation, but the
Home Government retains the control of the executive.

3. Colonies possessing representative institutions and responsible
government, in which the Crown has only a veto on legislation, and the
Home Government has no control over any public officer except the
Governor.

The British Colonial Governments thus present an absolute gradation of
rule; beginning with absolute despotism and ending with almost absolute
legal independence, except in so far as a veto on legislation and the
presence of a Governor named by the Crown mark the dependence of the
colony on the mother country.

It is to be remembered, moreover, that the colonies which have received
this complete local freedom are the great colonies of the earth--nations
themselves possessing territories as large or larger than any European
State--namely, Canada, the Cape, New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland,
South Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania. And this change from dependence
to freedom has been effected with the good-will both of the mother
country and the colony, and without it being imputed to the colonists,
when desiring a larger measure of self-government, that they were
separatists, anarchists, or revolutionists.

Such are the general principles of colonial government, but one colony
requires special mention, from the circumstance of its Constitution
having been put forward as a model for Ireland; this is the Dominion of
Canada. The Government of Canada is, in effect, a subordinate federal
union; that is to say, it possesses a central Legislature, having the
largest possible powers of local self-government consistent with the
supremacy of the empire, with seven inferior provin