in a third-rate little
consultative council, planted in a back-room in Westminster, waiting
for the commands of the Secretary of State. In short, a suspicion
dawns upon one's mind that this sense of coldness, this vague craving
for closer bonds, this crying for a union, on the part of some
colonists, is, in truth, a sign of restless _malaise_, which means, if
it were probed to the bottom, not a desire for union at all, but a
sense of fitness for independence.

There are great and growing difficulties in the matter of foreign and
inter-colonial relations. But these will not be solved by a council
which may be at variance with the government and majority in the
colony. They are much better solved, as they arise, by a conference
with the Agent for the Colonies, or, as has been done in the case of
Canada, by allowing the government of the colony to take a part in
the negotiations, and to settle its own terms. Fisheries, copyright,
and even customs' duties, are instances in point. This is a process
which will have to be carried further. Each large colony will have
relations to foreign countries more and more distant from those of the
mother country, and must be allowed to deal with those relations
itself. How this is to be done will be a problem in each case. It will
furnish a new chapter of international law. But it is a chapter of law
which will grow _pro re nata_. Its growth will not be helped or
forwarded by any _a priori_ system. Any such system would be attended
with all the evils of defective foresight, and would both fetter and
irritate.

III.

To test the strain that Australian attachment to the imperial
connection would bear, we have a right to imagine the contingency of
Great Britain being involved in a war with a foreign Power of the
first class. Leaving Sir Henry Parkes, we find another authority to
enlighten us upon the consequences in such a case. Mr. Archibald
Forbes is a keen observer, not addicted to abstract speculation, but
with a military eye for facts and forces as they actually are, without
reference to sentiments or ideals to which anybody else may wish to
adjust them. Mr. Forbes has traced out some of the effects upon
Australian interests of an armed conflict between the mother country
and a powerful adversary. Upon the Australian colonies, he says
emphatically, such a conflict would certainly bring wide-ranging and
terrible mischiefs. We had a glimpse of what would happen at once, in
t