Australia and the Empire/Front matter

by Arthur Patchett Martin

"I hold and believe that the time is not remote when Great Britain trill give up the idea of treating the dependencies of the Crown as children to he cast adrift by their parent as soon as they arrive at manhood, and substitute for it the far wiser and nobler policy of knitting herself and her colonies into one mighty Confederacy, girdling the earth in its whole circumference, and confident against the world in arts and arms."

From: a Speech delivered by Robert Lowe (Viscount Sherbrooke in the Legislative Council, Sydney, August 20, 1844.