admission, merely following the practice of nations in the past. Supposing matters to become acute, is it England's duty to fight Japan if necessary on the question at her own expense for a matter that concerns only Australia? It is obviously not to England's interest so far as Japan is concerned, but of what use is England to Australia unless she is ready to do this? Australia by herself certainly could not offer any military resistance to Japan worth the name.
Again, there is the case of Canada and the United States. A dispute in which England must fight the United States or sacrifice Canada is quite possible. It is palpably not to England's interest to fight the United States for the sake of retaining Canada as a piece of red upon the map; but the chief use of the Mother Country to Canada is as a safeguard against American expansion northward. Of course did Canada desire to unite with the States the Mother Country would offer no military objection; but the question is: In what way does the Canadian colony benefit the Mother Country? This is a hard question to answer, except on the grounds of sentiment. Corn comes thence, it is true; but corn, wherever it comes from, is sent by people who wish to make money by selling it.
The policy of knitting the colonies closer to the Empire by drawing fighting material from them has much to recommend it; but equally so has that policy of gradual dissociation which contemplates the eventual establishment of the colonies as independent republics,
