the present day, when dealing with this question, has said that when the great colonies wish to go Great Britain will raise no objection; that this view has been re-echoed unanimously by the press and by public opinion; and that no advocate of Imperial Federation, national unity, or whatever other name we apply to British consolidation, has ever hinted at the union of the self-governing portions of the Empire as anything else than a pact entered into voluntarily by communities free to choose or refuse as they please, as free as were the States of the American Union or the provinces of the Dominion to adopt their present system. Britain has not waited, and Imperial Federationists have not waited, for Mr. Carnegie's supplications to decide this great and fundamental issue of national policy. The advocates of national unity are the foremost to proclaim it. Folly, for it is folly when Mr. Carnegie, in the face of facts like these, which nobody can question, rounds his periods with hints at cruel oppression, on the one side, and independence won by force, on the other, when discussing the relations of England and her colonies. It is on his own continent that he finds the example of states kept within a national union by force. {259} If Mr. Carnegie understands little about Britain's relation to her colonies and to the world, he understands much less about the opinions of colonists. None the less he speaks of them with the most complete assurance of knowledge. A single illustration will give the measure of his ignorance. Quoting certain views in opposition to British connection expressed by Mr. Mercier, the late leader of the extreme national party in the French province of Quebec, he gravely assures his readers that Mr. Mercier reflects the sentiments of ninety-nine out of every hundred native-born Canadians and Australians. Absurdity could scarcely go further.