We need not wait for a formal and complete federal constitution. Some central council for consultation on the best means of taking advantage of the new opportunities, some central fund for promoting common objects, such as advertising the wonderful attractions of the islands and preparing for the birds of passage that will soon be coming from every civilized country in the Old and New World--all this is possible now. It is important, too, that the West Indian colonies should have some assembly or council through which they can address the Imperial Power with a single voice. England can give these colonies invaluable help. She can assist them to develop those steamship and telegraphic communications between the islands which are still so inadequate. She can indicate the best locations for harbours, coaling and repairing stations, and the other facilities which the new traffic will require. In view of the certain growth in wealth and prosperity, the colonies ought to be able by contributions among themselves to provide a substantial fund for objects they can carry out in common for the advantage of each and all. Some valuable information and very practical suggestion will be found in the report of the West Indian Commission presided over by Lord Balfour of Burleigh which was issued in 1910. Besides recommending a system of reciprocal trade preference between Canada and the West Indies, the commissioners made important proposals with regard to steamship and telegraphic communications. They favoured the public ownership and operation of the West Indian cables and possibly of the whole system northward to Halifax. They wrote:-- The single cables now connecting Halifax with Bermuda and Bermuda with Jamaica ought either to be duplicated or supplemented by wireless. A cable should be laid between Bermuda and Barbados, with a branch to Trinidad, and perhaps another to British Guiana. The cables which run from Jamaica to the eastern islands and British Guiana, sometimes single and sometimes duplicate, are very old. The bed of this part of the Caribbean being trying for cables, we believe it would be found advantageous in most cases not to renew them, but to replace them by wireless installations. If these were well arranged, they might form a satisfactory connection between the eastern islands and Jamaica and an alternative route to Bermuda, and render unnecessary duplication of the suggested Bermuda-Barbados cable. While it is desirable to connect British Honduras with Jamaica, we consider that the probable volume of traffic would not warrant the cost of a cable. We therefore recommend the employment of wireless for this purpose. Small installations should also be supplied to the outlying Leeward and Bahamas Islands.