Chapter X
A POINT IN THE COMMONWEALTH BILL
THERE are only three bonds by which our present Empire is held together; (1) our hegemony in matters of foreign policy; (2) the legislative veto; and (3) the judicial prerogative of the Crown.
The first is a vague power, depending on abundant good management as well as goodwill from all parties concerned. How valueless it is bound to become in cases where the spontaneous friendliness born of racial solidarity is lacking, may be seen in the cases of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State; both of which (not to enter upon any discussion about that precious word suzerainty) we claim to hold under our hegemony; a claim which they as frankly repudiate. Canada has accepted the necessary drawbacks of her position as a secondary state with a loyalty past all praise. The sagacity and statesmanship of her leaders has led them to postpone the interests of the Dominion to those of the Empire, as freely as though the organic union of our world-state were an accomplished fact, instead of an ideal which they have done much towards realising. And their lofty subordination, their politic unselfishness, has won them an established and honoured place in the councils of the Empire. But it will be seen that the position needs regularising. Colonies are not all, nor always, so wisely administered as Canada. Australia, in the past, has often shown a quite pardonable restlessness, in face of the irritating, though comparatively unimportant, foreign complica-
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