e existing sentiment of unity has sprung. The problem
of our time is to devise means for the more concrete and living
expression of this sentiment without impairing the rights of
self-government on which it depends. Hitherto the "Imperialist" has had
matters all his own way and has cleverly exploited Colonial opinion, or
an appearance of Colonial opinion, in favour of class ascendancy and
reactionary legislation in the mother country. But the colonies include
the most democratic communities in the world. Their natural sympathies
are not with the Conservatives, but with the most Progressive parties in
the United Kingdom. They favour Home Rule, they set the pace in social
legislation. There exist accordingly the political conditions of a
democratic alliance which it is the business of the British Liberal to
turn to account. He may hope to make his country the centre of a group
of self-governing, democratic communities, one of which, moreover,
serves as a natural link with the other great commonwealth of
English-speaking people. The constitutional mechanism of the new unity
begins to take shape in the Imperial Council, and its work begins to
define itself as the adjustment of interests as between different
portions of the Empire and the organization of common defence. Such a
union is no menace to the world's peace or to the cause of freedom. On
the contrary, as a natural outgrowth of a common sentiment, it is one of
the steps towards a wider unity which involves no backstroke against the
ideal of self-government. It is a model, and that on no mean scale, of
the International State.

Internationalism on the one side, national self-government on the other,
are the radical conditions of the growth of a social mind which is the
essence, as opposed to the form, of democracy. But as to form itself a
word must, in conclusion, be said. If the forms are unsuitable the will
cannot express itself, and if it fails of adequate expression it is in
the end thwarted, repressed and paralyzed. In the matter of form the
inherent difficulty of democratic government, whether direct or
representative, is that it is government by majority, not government by
universal consent. Its decisions are those of the larger part of the
people, not of the whole. This defect is an unavoidable consequence of
the necessities of decision and the impossibility of securing universal
agreement. Statesmen have sought to remedy it by applying something of
the nature