Westminster must retain freedom to move, act, strike quickly. Her course toward Germany had to be decided last August within a few hours. Obviously her freedom, her power for promptitude would be hindered in proportion to need for such consultation with and approval by councilors of many distant countries as is presupposed by advocates of imperial federation. Why establish control by cumbersome, superfluous machinery when the war has made it clear as the sun at high noon that the essential desideratum, British Union, exists now? All the notable communities of the King's realms have demonstrated that they are in the mind, the condition of a voluntary empire. What more can be desired save by such as desire old country domination of all the concerned countries, and who really long for a formal and subservient Empire? Sir Richard Jebb, a deep student of the Empire problem, declared clearly last November the meaning of that general voluntary British war union which is a wonder of mankind, and in the course to teach a profound, general political lesson. He wrote: That the war will in any event change the external relations is evident. But why, if we win, should it change the political relations between the parts, except to the extent of encouraging us to conserve and develop the existing system which has given so signal an example of effective imperial unity in time of need? Continually talking of imperial unity, we fail to recognize it when we have got it. There is never going to be a moment when one might say "Yesterday we were not united; today the Grand Act (of Imperial Federation understood) has been signed; henceforth we are united." The cult of the Grand Act is a snare and a delusion. Whatever may happen hereafter--even the Grand Act itself--posterity is likely to look back upon August, 1914, as the moment when the British Empire reached the zenith of its unity. Let us remember that the existing system is not stationary, though its principle (voluntary union) may be final. It has been developing steadily since 1902. The Australian fleet unit, the first of the Dominion navies, which enables each to exert upon foreign policy the full weight of its importance in the empire, was not begun until 1910. The corollary, that any Dominion Minister appointed to reside in London should have free and constant access to the British Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, was only conceded in January, 1912, and has not yet been taken advantage of, even by Australia. But the development is all true to principle. What principle? Voluntary co-operation, as opposed to central compulsion. In war, as in peace, each of the Britannic nations is free to do or not to do. But we have invoked naval and military co-ordination, with results which the Australian Navy has already exemplified (on the Emden, &c.)