within the region of practical politics, now or in the near future.
Doubtless it is easy to make out a strong case against using 'alliance' to cover the existing position, or any future position in which there would remain the features at least of a common Crown and a common foreign policy, such as is implied by the idea of an all-round offensive and defensive combination. Yet 'alliance,' or any equally neutral term, has this great advantage, that it is not more misleading to one of the democracies than to another. If it is inadequate, the mere acknowledgment of its inadequacy, being common to all the scattered sections of a certain Imperialist school, makes it a safer aid to discussion than any term which has a localized official meaning.
The essential point about the existing position is the fact of independent Executives—exercising powers, such as the absolute control of separate armaments and antagonistic fiscal systems, which make the actual relationship more like mere alliance than anything else, despite the common Crown. The independence of these Executives is a factor which I take to be permanent—at least, for our time; since I cannot detect the slightest indication, either here or beyond the seas, of any widespread disposition to surrender any part of that independence. On the contrary, there seems to be a pronounced and popular tendency in the opposite direction. The Premier of the Dominion, who commonly is reckoned an Imperialist, apparently thinks it consistent with sound Imperialism to talk about 'treaties' being negotiated between Canada and England. When Mr. Chamberlain, in the earlier speeches of his campaign, seemed to contemplate the gradual junction of citizen to citizen, by way of unrestricted commercial competition and fiscal union, the outer States of the Empire gave pretty clear indications that such was not their conception of Imperial consolidation. Likewise in this country there were signs of a revolt against the conception of any commercial arrangement which might
