Whether in a critical contest for the possession of India Australia would contribute men, as well as supplies, may be left to conjecture. But looking at all that would be at stake for the colonies of the South, the failure to respond to a real call of need against Russia would indicate some falling off in that 'saving common sense' which has hitherto inclined British people to challenge enemies on the furthest {217} frontier rather than await them at their own doors. An Australian opinion has already been given upon this subject. A contingent of Australian troops sent to the Soudan may be put to the credit of impulsive national enthusiasm; a contingent one day on the frontier of Afghanistan might well be the outcome of deliberate and far-sighted Australian policy. I attach very little importance to the opinion, sometimes expressed, that in view of the rapid increase of a native-born population in Australia, any measures looking towards national unity should be hurried forward before the generation born in the United Kingdom had passed away or lost its controlling influence. Other reasons there are for early movement, but not this one. The idea of national unity must win on its own merits. The growth of a native-born population may or may not make for consolidation, but it is on the judgment and sentiment of such a population that the strength of any union must ultimately depend. Meanwhile we may remember that four-fifths of the population of Canada is native-born; the fact has not weakened in the slightest degree the closeness of sympathy with Great Britain and the Empire. Of the many ardent advocates of national unity, everywhere scattered throughout the Dominion, by far the larger proportion consists of native Canadians. So I believe it will ultimately be in Australia. The longer history of Canada, the more severe conditions of that history, seem to me to have given a greater {218} maturity and definiteness of political thought in Canada than in Australia.