Wales either, to sink to that political level. Now some votaries of the federal scheme seem to see all this, which its more enthusiastic partisans seem not to have thought of. Such disputants do not argue for the perfect form of Federation, the _Bundesstaat_, the constitution of Achaia as it was, of Switzerland and America as they are. They would have us fall back on something more like the mere _Staatenbund_, the type of imperfect Federation which the Seven United Provinces never threw off, but which Switzerland, after a long experience, and the United States after a short one, did throw off in favour of those more perfect forms of Federation which they at present possess. It does not perhaps quite settle the question to say that this would be indeed a step backwards. It might be argued, at least as a specimen of ingenuity in disputation, that such a lax kind of union might possibly suit a confederation whose members lie at vast distances from one another, though it has been proved not to suit confederations whose members lie close together. And then one might argue back again that the physical disunion needed of itself to be, as far as might be, counterbalanced by the closest political union. In a mere _Staatenbund_ all difficulties about the relations of the British Parliament to the new Federal Parliament would be got rid of; for there would be no need of any Federal Parliament. But either the union would have to be so lax as to be really no confederation at all, or else, even in this less perfect union, the British Parliament would still have to give up some of its chiefest and most cherished powers. Instead of a Federal Assembly, there would be a mere congress[8] or conference of representatives from each member of the Union, a congress meeting to discuss the foreign affairs of the Union, perhaps with power to settle them, perhaps not. At present the foreign affairs of the kingdom, and of the “empire” too, are settled by the advisers of the Crown, subject to the indirect control of the British Parliament. And in a perfect federation, a _Bundesstaat_, this indirect system might go on, the indirect control being of course transferred from the British Parliament to the Parliament of the whole “empire.” But in a mere _Staatenbund_ it is hard to see how an indirect control can be brought to bear upon anybody. If the Congress is to have authority to decide in foreign affairs, it must consist of representatives of the several members of the Union. Only then where would be the authority of the Crown and the responsibility of the ministers of the Crown? And with the authority of the Crown, the authority of Parliament, of all the Parliaments, will have vanished also. The only way of giving them, or leaving them, any authority, would be the helpless plan of making the congress merely consultative. It might be a body which should simply recommend measures, and leave them to be approved and carried out by