[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 to India instead of minding their own very sufficiently exacting business. The Federal Council would be, we may suppose, deliberative and executive, but we have not been told whence its executive would be taken. If from its own members, then London (if that is to be the seat of the Federal Government) would see not only two legislatures, but two cabinets, because it would certainly happen that the Federal Council would constantly give its confidence to men sent to it from the colonies, and not having seats in the British Parliament. In that case the mother of parliaments would sink into the condition of a state legislature, though the contributions of Great Britain would certainly be many times larger than those of all the colonies put together. If, on the contrary view, Great Britain were to take the lead in the Council, to shape its policy, and to furnish its ministers, can anybody doubt that the same resentment and sense of grievance which was in old times directed against the centralisation of the Colonial Office, would instantly revive against the centralisation of the new Council?