In the next place, the transition of such a Crown settlement into the rank and status of a colony with responsible government is not left to be decided by agitation within the colonies or by irregular pressure in other directions, such as lately took place in the case of Western Australia; but it is made to depend on a definite increase of European population and other conditions equally applicable to all colonies alike. With the grant of responsible government, however, comes a clear division between imperial and local powers, and an equally definite distribution of burdens; the guarantee to the colony of protection from foreign aggression being contingent upon the contribution by {12} the colony of the revenue or money required for defence in fair proportion to its wealth and population. Lastly, 'as the natural termination of a connection in itself of a temporary character' (to use the words of the preface to the Bill), provision is made for the formal separation of a colony and its erection into an independent state when its people feel equal to under-taking the full range of national responsibility. Direct provision is made for independence only at the colony's own request, but it is suggested that separation might be brought about by coercive proclamation on the part of the mother-country in case the colony fails to perform the national duties which it accepted with responsible government. The interest of this proposed legislation seems to me to lie in the proof which it furnishes that the grant of responsible government was by no means regarded as giving finality to national relations, but only as marking a stage in colonial development. The view thus taken by Lord Thring in England was the view taken by Joseph Howe in Canada, to whose opinions I shall have occasion hereafter to refer. The merit of the Bill lay in the fact that it placed upon a defined and easily understood footing the relations of mother-land and colony so long as they remained together; and provided a constitutional way of escape from the connection when it had ceased to give satisfaction to either party. Its peculiarity, indicative of the opinions prevailing at the time, is that no notice is taken of the possibility of a colony rising {13} to a place of greatness and power inconsistent with a strictly subordinate colonial relation, and yet desiring to perpetuate its organic connection with the nation.