As to the second message there is this to be said: No hint is given as to the preponderance of opinion in the "self-governing" colonies. Great Britain possesses a number of dependencies still under the sole control of Crown appointees; and so far as the information given goes, the voice of some official in an out-of-the-way possession may have been considered as equal in value to the deliberate reply of a Cabinet responsible to a representative legislature. There have been no outward and visible signs that in any of the Colonies efforts have been made to obtain the true views of the trading communities. In fact, it may be regarded as tolerably certain that many of the reports furnished have been framed by officers imperfectly acquainted with the subject. The late Chief Justice Higinbotham, of Victoria, when in the political arena, objected that much of Colonial Office policy was the work af "a clerk called Rogers." Possibly many ot the answers given to the Colonial Office Circular have been written by "clerks called Rogers," and are altogether valueless as expressions of public opinion.
These, and other signs of the times, indicate that there is an increase of the danger against which I have endeavoured to warn those who consider what I have written, and, I may add, finally, that in the fulfilment of what I consider a public duty, I have determined to send a copy of this treatise to every member of the Federal Legislature, before which body, in the fulness of time, this most important question will come up for decision.
March, 1904.
