PREFACE
In submitting this little sheaf of Essays to the British public, as a slender contribution to the great Imperial discussions of the day, I have only to express my regret as a loyal colonist that I cannot support the policy enunciated by that respectable section who are known as Imperial Federationists. With the object of their League, and particularly with the aims of its late lamented Chief, William Edward Forster, I feel the greatest sympathy; but the means suggested, and the policy formulated, seem to me the reverse of wisely constructive. Certainly, unless the whole character of our Parliamentary Government undergoes a radical change, a common Imperial Assembly, meeting at Westminster—or elsewhere—would simply be a cumbrous and unwieldy engine, only capable of bursting and blowing its engineers into fragments.
The opening political sketch of Lord Sherbrooke
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