same as the “British Empire,” it cannot be the same as the “Federation of English-speaking people;” and that if it be either the one or the other, certain consequences would seem to follow which it seems to me are now and then forgotten. But one thing is certain. If the phrase “Greater Britain” answers to “federation of the English-speaking people,” if it takes in the English-speaking people of the United States of America, it also takes in great communities of English-speaking people in America, Australasia, Africa, and other parts of the islands and continents of the Ocean, which are not in the same political condition as the United States. Herein comes a great political problem, which never presented itself to any mind in the old colonizing days of Phœnicia and Greece, and which never presented itself to any mind in modern Europe till quite lately. The older state of things was familiar with distant and scattered settlements which none the less formed a national whole, but which stood in no political relation either to one another or to the mother-cities from whence they were settled. The later state of things was no less familiar with distant and scattered settlements, perhaps forming a national whole, perhaps not, but in either case united to the mother-country, the ruling country, by a common tie of dependence. The fact that so many European colonies which were held in this relation have parted asunder from the states on which they were dependent, the great case of all, the winning of independence by thirteen American colonies of England, the wonderful growth of those colonies in their new character as independent states, has for a long time past drawn men’s minds to the relations between mother-country and colony. The relation once so common in the modern world, the relation of mere dependence, sometimes almost of bondage, is no longer maintained on any hand. In the chief colonies of Great Britain at all events, every care has been taken, while keeping the relation of dependence, to make dependence as little irksome as may be. The fullest local freedom has been given; dependence has in appearance sunk to little more than the retention of a common allegiance to a common sovereign. Of late keener eyes have seen somewhat more clearly what has lurked beneath this, at first sight, very pleasing relation. In its internal affairs the colony is, in all seeming, as free as the mother-country; I say in all seeming, because even in the freest colonial constitutions there is still a certain hidden power which may ever and anon step forth in a way in which it never can step forth again in the mother-country. And the fullest independence in local affairs cannot wholly put out of sight the fact that in all strictly national affairs the freest of colonies is as dependent as ever. The greatest and freest of colonies may at any moment find itself plunged into a war which may suit the interests or the fancies of the people of Great Britain, but