What is to be the machinery of this
future association? Mr. Forster, like Mr. Seeley, and perhaps with
equally good right, leaves time to find the answer, contenting himself
with the homely assurance that 'when the time comes it will be found
that where there's a will there's a way.' Our position is that the
will depends upon the way, and that the more any possible way of
federation is considered, the less likely is there to be the will.

[4] The refusal to allow the informers in the Phoenix Park
trials to land in Australia is worth remembering under this
head.

[5] _Our Colonial Empire._ By the Right Hon. W. E. Forster,
M.P. Edmonston and Douglas. 1875.

It is not in the mere machinery of federation that insurmountable
difficulties arise, but in satisfying ourselves that the national
sentiment would supply steam enough to work the machinery. Of course
we should at once be brought face to face with that which is, in Mr.
Forster's judgment, one of the strongest arguments against giving
responsible government to Ireland, the necessity for a written
constitution. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council were engaged
only the other day in hearing a dispute on appeal (Hodge v. the
Queen), turning on the respective powers of the legislature of Ontario
and the Parliament of the Dominion. The instrument to be interpreted
was the British North America Act, but who will draft us a bill that
shall settle the respective powers of the Dominion legislature, the
British legislature, and the Universal Greater British legislature?

It would be interesting to learn what place in the great Staatenbund
or Bundes-staat would be given to possessions of the class of the West
Indies, Mauritius, the West Coast, and such _propugnacula_ of the
Empire as Gibraltar, Malta, Aden, or Hong-Kong. What have we to offer
Australia in return for joining us in a share of such obligations as
all these entail? Are her taxpayers anxious to contribute to their
cost? Have her politicians either leisure or special competency for
aiding in their administration? India, we must assume, would come
within the province and jurisdiction of the Federation. It would
hardly be either an advantage or a pleasure to the people of a young
country, with all their busy tasks hot on their hands, to be
interrupted by the duty of helping by men or cash to put down an
Indian Mutiny, and even in quiet times to see their politicians
attending t