'Are the negroes of the West Indies to be included? {190} Is Quashee to vote on imperial policy?' says Mr. Smith, in fine scorn of the British federationist, who doubtless has no special fear or thought about a carefully restricted and controlled coloured vote in a few scattered colonies: a vote which in the aggregate represents not more than a very minute fraction of one per cent. of the enfranchised citizenship of the Empire. Strangely out of place, however, does this scorn seem when we find the same pages embody an argument for Canadians throwing in their political lot with a Republic where the Quashee vote, unconditionally and irrevocably granted, will far outweigh their own; where it will become enormously influential as soon as the free exercise is permitted of the rights granted by constitutional law, as, one would think, must ultimately be the case in a country which claims to give exceptional political freedom. Equally inconsistent does it seem when placed beside the romantic political enterprize to which Mr. Smith would commit Canadians. He says, 'The native American element in which the tradition of self-government resides is hard-pressed by the foreign element untrained to self-government, and stands in need of the reinforcement which the entrance of Canada into the Union would bring it[5].' Nay, more, Mr. Smith wishes Canada to enter the Union for Britain's sake, that she may 'neutralize the votes of her enemies[6].' Does he reflect that if the Canadian {191} vote chanced to be barely insufficient to neutralize the votes of Britain's enemies, Canada would, as I have elsewhere pointed out, be constitutionally forced into active hostility to the mother-land? The path which he points out has on it possible natural dishonour from which Canadians will instinctively shrink. They will prefer to retain the right to neutralize the influence of Britain's enemies, if the necessity arise, by other means, such as they have found effective before. [1] A _Times_' editorial has spoken of Mr. Smith's views about the relations of Canada to the Empire as 'one of those crazes that are scarcely intelligible in a man of great intellectual power.' [2] Lord Brassey, _Naval Annual_, 1890 [3] _Canada and the Canadian Question_, p. 260. [4] _Canada and the Canadian Question_, p. 232. [5] _Canada and the Canadian Question_, p. 274. [6] _Idem_, p. 269. {192} CHAPTER VIII. AUSTRALIA.