The Press. SATURDAY, AUGUST 28, 1897. IMPERIAL FEDERATION.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 9817, 28 August 1897, Page 6

The Press. SATURDAY, AUGUST 28, 1897. IMPERIAL FEDERATION.

The proposal which our London Correspondent attributes to Mr. Chamberlain of creating an African and an Australian peer to represent those dominions of the colonial Empire in the Gilded Chamber will strike the reader on this side the equator as bordering on the burlesque. Ifc reads like a chapter out of Sic Julius Vogbl's " Araio Domino 2000," in its grandiose futility. We say nothing of the practical difficulty of selection; in Australia at least the task of choosiug the man whom the Queen should delight to honour would be well-nigh impossible. But even granting that initial difficulties may be overcome, there remains the fact that the colonies wonld not wish for, because they would not value, representation in the House of Lords. Such representation would have little other than purely ceremonial value; it would carry with it just about as much favour and influence in the counsels of the Empire as the inclusion of the lion. Dr. Seddon among her Majesty's Privy Councillors. It is the House of Commons that is the predominant partner in the Government of England. But though Mr, Chamberlain professes to regard his colonial Peers as but a prelude to colonial Commoners he is himself forced to admit that the practical difficulties of colonial representation in the Commons' House are at present, aud look likely to remain, insuperable. The whole Constitution of the House of Lords would have to be materially modified before colonial representation ia that Chamber would have more than decorative signifioanoe. In such a second Chamber as J. i S- Mill sketched in his essay on j " Liberty " ifc might mean something? But Mr. Chamberlain in the meantime does not dream any more than his colleague, Lord Samsbuhy, of any such sweeping constitutional changes. • The alternative proposal for a Consultative Counoil composed of the Agents-General is chimerical. The Agents are to form a Council to advise the Colonial Secretary ia matters of colonial interest, to keep him informed as to the direction of colonial politics and advise him as to the tendency of colonial public opinion. Wβ entirely fail to see how the AgentsGeneral in Council can do anything in this .direction which they cannot do as well or better individually. The interests which the colonies have in common as distinct from the Mother Country are not many. They differ in move poiate than they resemble each other. The individual AgentsGeneral will bo able to give clearer counsel than their aggregate wisdom could supply. Moreover, Mr. Cham' BKRLA.IN imports into the office of Agent-General a character and a purpose it is neither fitted nor intended to bear. The Agents-General represent nob a people but a party. Most of them are political partisans, deegfttotied by the Govesauwnt i»

power. Oar owa, tot example naa a short tenure of office* which, under the present admiuUtra' fcion, is not likely to bo lengthened h* renewal. It would be idle for any one to pretend that either Sir Wissra? Perceval or Mr. Rrbves are tit orga.ua to express the public opinion oE the people of this colony as a wholethey went Home as the mouthpieces of a party. To trust to a council of such party nominees for impartial information on public affairs will be manifestly absurd. The AgentGeneral in London, Me. Rkevks, for example, openly professes himself the champion of the party that gavo h\ m his post, and holds himself out to the English public as the advocate for it 3 ideas. Whenever Seddonite finauce or Seddouite legislation is criticised at Home Mr. Rkevks takes up a brief fo t his late colleagues. He represents them, and not the people of the colony as a whole.

Mr. OfUMBKRTATN's proposal moreover, strikes at the root of a conatu tutional principle. There is in the person of the Governor a properly cog. stituted go-between, who forms the only constitutional link between the Crown and the responsible Govern, ments of the self-governed colonies. He, from the nature of his post is 1 granting he be a man of ability and discernment —specially qualified to inform and advise the Colonial Secretary. And giving such information and advioe is about the only consfcitu* tional function left to him. His other prerogatives have been whittled away • even the sovereign prerogatives of mere? he only exercises on the advice of hig Ministers, and Colonial Democracies are trying to wrench from him the control of Upper House appointments. If Mr. Chamberlain establishes his proposed Consultative Council of Agents-General, he will be undermining the last remaining constitutional function of the Cclq. nial Governor, and he will be substituting for a reliable and impartial adviser a strong partisan tribunal. We feel certain, however, that the r<). ception of his scheme in the colonies will convince him—if he does not realize it before —that it is almost as impracticable as his suggested creation of an African Earl of Buluwayo or an Australian Duke of Wooloomooloo.

The ties which knit these loyal colonies to the Mother land are too strong to need these artificial links to corroborate them. The common heritage of race and religion, language and literature—to say nothing of trada and the flag—will oontinue to knit the Empire. For more substantial bonds of union the time and the neoesaity hive not yet arrived ; additional fetters, on the contrary, may produce chafing.