Atlas, deeply groaning, the remedies suggested were (1) Local self-government, and (2) Representation in the British Parliament. The former has long since been achieved, and has worked, like other mundane contrivances, with more or less success. In defence of the latter measure, the chief panacea of our present-day Imperial Federationists, Robert Lowe addressed an argument which had much more weight before the Colonies achieved autonomy. "If," he wrote, "the Colonial Secretary were to be called to account, in the face of the House and the country, for the freaks and misconduct of his clerks, he would then quickly discover that however competent one person may be to administer the patronage, one person cannot manage the affairs of forty Colonies. A division of labour would ensue as soon as responsibility was really felt, the reign of clerks would terminate, and that of responsible ministers would begin."
To my mind, at least, it seems that what I may call the unwieldiness of a common Parliament at Westminster for so enormous and widely-divided an Empire, far more than outweighs such arguments in its favour. This is strongly emphasised just at present, when a large party in the State loudly declare that a single Parliament cannot perform the legislative work of these two small contiguous
