It is sometimes urged that freedom from national burdens should be enough to reconcile colonists to any lack of representation in national counsels; that if they have no sufficient share of Imperial Government they are at least rid of Imperial anxieties; that wise direction of affairs may, in any case, be looked for from the mother-land. But no immunity from public burdens, can compensate for the loss of a share in the higher life of the nation and the higher dignity of full citizenship: no honourable career can result from a readiness to shirk responsibility: a willingness to rely upon others to do our {18} work or protect our interests is not the spirit which has built up or will perpetuate the power of our race. Such argument may suit the infancy of colonies; applied to their adolescence it is degrading, since it implies a mean and contented dependence. If the greater British colonies are permanently content with their present political status they are unworthy of the source from which they sprang. It will not be so. The spirit of independence has developed, not degenerated, in the wider breathing space of new continents. A very little further growth, increasing the complication and aggravating the anomaly of the existing situation, will bring us to a stage where that spirit will no longer endure the restraints now put upon it by practical difficulties of political organization, and where those difficulties must be swept away by the gathering force of national instincts and necessities. About the direction of change there may be a question; about the certainty of change there can be none. But the argument is equally strong when we reverse our attitude, and place ourselves in the position of the taxpaying citizens of the United Kingdom. There are probably few of these who are not at times filled with a glow of pride and enthusiasm when they think of the vast extent of those colonies, which, planted by British energy, held through years of conflict by British courage, and proudly inheriting British traditions, are rising to pre-eminence in every quarter of the globe. {19}