I shall of course be told that nothing of this kind is meant. And no doubt nothing of this kind is meant by anybody. Only, if so, people should not use words which mean either this or nothing. They should tell us distinctly what they do mean. The words “Imperial Federation,” “Federation of the Empire,” either mean nothing, or they mean that on all “imperial” questions the speakers of English shall be liable to be outvoted by the speakers of Tamul and Telugu. A federation which does not give these last equal federal rights with their European fellow-subjects is not a “Federation of the Empire,” but only of a small part of the “Empire.” Such a federation would be, as regards India, simply an enlargement of the dominant “we,” an admission of more members to “we”-ship and its privileges. The people of India have now for their masters the people of the United Kingdom only. They would then have for their masters the people of the United Kingdom and those of the British colonies also. Such an outcome might be highly imperial, but it would not be at all federal, at least not federal for the vast majority of the inhabitants of the Federal Empire. There would be a grand stroke indeed on behalf of “imperium,” but very little indeed would be done on behalf of “libertas.” * * * * * In truth, in this particular argument, India, so present to every mind in every other argument, India, the choicest flower of the Empire, the brightest jewel in the Imperial Crown--any other figure of speech that may spring of the oriental richness of an imperial fancy--seems suddenly to be forgotten. But another land seems also to be forgotten, a land which should surely be more to us than all the wonders of the East, a land whose kindred and friendship should surely be more precious to Englishmen than all the glories and all the treasures of a hundred thousand Great Moguls. If it would be a strange Federation of the Empire which should shut out the greater part of the inhabitants of the Empire, it would be a yet stranger Federation of the English-speaking people which should shut out the greater part of the English-speaking people. It is wonderful to see how the declaimers about “Greater Britain” and “Imperial Federation” seem ever and anon perplexed by the fact that there is on the western shore of Ocean, perhaps not a greater Britain, but assuredly a newer England. I believe that no one proposes that the Federation of the English-speaking people shall take in the United States of America; if any one does so propose, I honour him as being at once bolder and more logical than his brethren. But unless such a federation does take in the United States of America, it will assuredly be a very lame and imperfect federation. It is the most curious illustration of the modern theory of colonization, the substitution of mere personal allegiance for nationality in the higher sense, that any mind could take in for