PROBLEMS OF EMPIRE.
part be dealt with in the legislatures of the several countries of the United Kingdom, and would be removed altogether from the control of the House of Lords.
Imperial issues often overshadow domestic questions.There is another important argument in favour of the separation of domestic business and Imperial business, on which a few words must be said. Under present conditions, when an appeal is made to the country, Imperial questions and domestic questions are submitted to the electors in a confused issue. Of recent years, Imperial questions have held the larger share of the attention of the electorate. At the election of 1900 every domestic issue was subordinated to the one Imperial question—the war in South Africa. The result was a crushing defeat of the Liberal party. But from the fact that London, which is represented in the Imperial Parliament by an overwhelming majority of Conservatives, has recently returned a Progressive majority to the London Council, it is not unreasonable to infer that the country would have desired Liberals to manage its domestic business while it believed that its Imperial and foreign interests were safer in the hands of the Conservatives. At some future election the converse of what happened last year might take place. Some question of domestic policy might be to the front, and the party might be returned to power on that issue which perhaps in the opinion of the electorate was the less qualified to carry on the government of the Empire. Then, again, the impotent condition of the Liberal party to-day is due in the main to a division of opinion on Imperial policy, On this rock it may possibly be rent in twain. And yet, as to the necessity for those domestic reforms which have figured in the Liberal
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