us to revise our constitutional formulas. The change has been conveniently described as a transition from the 'colonial' to the 'national' stage; it has been officially marked by the substitution of the term 'Dominion' for 'Colony'; and, in place of supremacy and dependence, we speak of co-operation and partnership.

Both the advantages and the disadvantages of the system have been for some time manifest. It has been admirably adapted to that sense of self-government which corresponds in the case of the community with the principle of liberty in the case of the individual; and, just because it has rested upon political understandings rather than legal rules, 'responsible government' has had a power of adaptation to new conditions. The unquestioning spirit in which the Dominions have taxed their resources in the present war has added to the material assistance a moral value which, in the eyes of many, does more than vindicate the informal and extra-legal character of Imperial relations, and establishes the wisdom of our political development. This was the most general response of the Australian Press when Mr Hughes, in one of his speeches in England demanding Imperial organisation, was understood to have associated himself with some scheme for 'organic union.' A typical and long-standing Australian view of tendencies is no doubt expressed in the conclusion of the 'Age' article ('many times insisted on in these columns') already referred to-'that the ultimate goal of Empire will be found not in any form of federation which, from its very clumsiness, would be quite unworkable, but in a family alliance of free and independent nations.' The only definite meaning to be assigned to such a conclusion would be the dissolution of the British Empire as a political unit. The writer quite certainly does not mean that; and the vagueness of any other meaning that could be assigned to it in no way detracts from its value as an expression of common opinion.

On the other hand, the system has been the negation of unity in policy and strategy. Australia, conscious of her own interests, has been aware of the possibility of their being overlooked amid European complications of which she was a little impatient, and fearful of their

sacrifice in favour of ends which she did not deem to be her immediate concern. Great Britain on her side found her anxieties increased by an Australian policy not restrained by responsibility, and by a disposition, in the absence of that responsibility, to treat, as if they were matters of domestic and constitutional concern, affairs which a sovereign government could only regard as involving foreign relations.

The war has revealed in a tragic way Australia's concern in European politics, and her liabilities as a member of the Empire. Not for many months did she realise that the case differed otherwise than in degree from the campaigns in which she had already sent her sons to take their place in the fighting line beside those of Great Britain; that she was engaged in a struggle wherein victory could be won only by sacrifices which had never entered into her imagination; and that every interest and every aspiration that belonged to her nationhood were at stake. Nothing in the history of Australia leads us to suppose that she can regard as outside selfgovernment anything that she has found to affect her vital interests, or that she will continue, except of dire necessity, to accept a situation which commits her to the consequences of a policy in which her people have no share. If, as appears likely, one result of the war is the assumption by the people of the United Kingdom of a more real control over the foreign policy of the country, Australia will be the more conscious of her own exclusion.

The problem, so far as Australia is concerned, must be, how far she can realise this final attainment of selfgovernment within the Empire. The impossibility of divided control, declared by Mr Asquith in 1911, is emphasised by every circumstance connected with the present war. Australia can hardly find her share in the control of foreign policy by an extension of the functions of her own Commonwealth Government without a definite breach in the unity of the Empire and the assumption of the status of an independent nation in alliance merely with Great Britain. Indeed, the functions of the Australian Government are already so far-reaching as to make a dangerous gulf between the power of a Dominion Government and the responsibility of the Imperial Government. Every sentiment and every

interest of Australia repel the notion of separation; with her vast undertakings she has a vital need for the support which membership of the Empire confers and which could not be guaranteed by any mere alliance.

In the matter of defence, defects appear in the system, whether it be regarded from the standpoint of strategy or of politics. In form, the cooperation of Australia in war, its manner and extent, depend upon the free will of her Government when the occasion for action arises. In the early stages of the war, pride in the good services rendered by the Australian navy, in the first instance to our own coasts and shipping and then to the whole Empire through the destruction of the Emden,' and the success with which a large force was raised and transported to Europe, disposed even doubters to applaud our policy, and strengthened the feeling of confidence and satisfaction with the system which had produced it. But as the months passed, and the news received no longer encouraged the hope of an early termination of the war in our favour, people began to realise that, where all was at stake, every resource must be available; that every part of the Empire was called on for its own preservation to do no less than its utmost. It was apparent that every Dominion was endangered, if its resources did not enter into the scheme of imperial defence as fully as did those of the United Kingdom; and impatience was manifested when, in the urgency of the demand for munitions, the possibilities of supply from Australia appeared to be ignored.

Every scheme of strategy must be partial and hypothetical which cannot take account and dispose of the resources of the Dominions on a comprehensive plan. Australian democracy, even more than English, is willing to make large sacrifices of efficiency for the sake of its conceptions of self-government, personal liberty and justice. Its own institutions bear many marks of the small attention which the administrative side of public affairs has received in comparison with the representative and political. But here there is more involved than administrative co-ordination. Membership of the Empire involves unlimited liability to share in the common defence. Ultimately, defence, like every other matter of government, becomes a matter of political responsibility.

Yet the matters for which, in the actual conduct of the present war, the people of Australia can justly hold the Commonwealth Government responsible, cover a very small part of the actual employment of Australia's forces. The Dardanelles expedition, to mention only one episode of the war, can hardly fail to bring home to Australians, perhaps more directly and vividly even than the war itself, that there are matters of responsibility which concern them very closely, but for which the existing constitution offers them no satisfaction.

There was doubtless wisdom in the counsel of those who, like the late Lord Salisbury, warned us against attempts to force a decision before a decision was ready; and the appeal for delay may have been appropriate to the political conditions of 1902. But between 1902 and the present-between August 1914 and the present -there is a great gulf fixed. We have been carried too far in one leap for the necessary adjustments within the Empire to wait on the 'slow process of evolution' or other unconscious methods of adaptation. The danger that Lord Salisbury saw is still with us-the risk of discord in political institutions and the facts with which they have to deal. But to-day it lies in the fact that the actual relations have outrun their political expression. Some definite constructive policy will be demanded to bring the government of the Empire into harmony with the realities of the new situation.

The main objects to be attained in the re-settlement of Imperial relations are the efficient organisation and co-ordination of the resources of the Empire for common defence, the correlation of foreign policy and military strength, and a common responsibility for policy in foreign affairs. So far as the problems are administrative merely, the realisation of earlier schemes for a permanent secretariat, an intelligence department, expert commissions for collecting information, subsidiary conferences to deal with special subjects, and an Imperial general staff, might go some way to the solution of many of them. So far as the questions are matters of government and policy, the Imperial Conference and the

* The reference is to the speech of May 7, 1902.

Committee of Imperial Defence have been to some extent rival claimants for the position of an Imperial council of advice. Either of them might be used for this purpose, if the Dominions made the office of High Commissioner more definitely an office of political functions, as Australia appears likely to make it. At present the High Commissioner is (to borrow an analogy from the international field) a consular rather than a diplomatic agent. But schemes of this kind stop at consultative and advisory functions. The Conference is rather a council of diplomats, representing distinct Governments, than an organ of government. It is without power of binding determination; its essential principle is that of independent action by the several Governments; its responsibility is the responsibility of each Government to its own constituency. Its importance, therefore, is practically limited to those comparatively minor matters in which independent decision and action are possible. If it extended to matters of the first importance, it would proclaim that the Empire had already become a mere alliance.

Australia at any rate has not far to travel for illustration of the futility of attempting the work of government through conferences of independent Governments. Her own history from 1863 to the establishment of the Commonwealth was one of the failure of conferences to deal effectively with any subject, a history which did perhaps more than anything else to educate politicians as to the need for closer union.* Nor is the younger generation in Australia without a reminder of the same weakness in the arrangements of Conferences of Premiers at the present day.

The Committee of Imperial Defence differs from the Conference in more ways than one, but principally in that its advisory relation to the British Government emphasises the concentration of power in the Government of the United Kingdom. It has more than once been affirmed that the existence and functions of the Committee in no way impair the sole responsibility of

*For an account of the Intercolonial Conference, see the Quarterly Review,' No. 380 (Oct. 1899); Quick & Garran's 'Constitution of the Australian Commonwealth,' p. 103, seq.; Moore's Commonwealth of Australia,' 1st ed., p. 33, seq.