are scattered throughout the British Empire.  Victoria, which may be taken as a type of the whole class, is, for most purposes of local and internal administration, and for some purposes which go beyond the sphere usually assigned to local government, an independent, self-governing community.  Victoria is at the same time, for all purposes in theory and for many purposes in fact, a merely subordinate portion of the British Empire, and as truly subject to the British Parliament as is Middlesex or the Isle of Wight.

Let us try in the first place to realize—­for this is the essential matter as regards my present argument—­the full extent of Victorian independence.

Victoria enjoys a Constitution after the British model.  The Governor, the two Houses, the Ministry, reproduce the well-known features of our limited monarchy.  The Victorian Parliament further possesses in Victoria that character of sovereignty which the British Parliament possesses throughout the dominions of the Crown, and is (subject, of course, to the authority of the British Parliament itself) as supreme at Melbourne as are Queen, Lords, and Commons at Westminster.  It makes and unmakes Cabinets; it controls the executive action of the Ministry; who, in their turn, are the authorized advisers of that sham constitutional monarch, the Colonial Governor.  The Parliament, moreover, recognizes no restrictions on its legislative powers; it is not, as is the Congress of the United States, restrained within a very limited sphere of action; it is not, as are both the Congress and the State Legislatures of the Union, bound hand and foot by the articles of a rigid Constitution; it is not compelled to respect any immutable maxims of legislation.  Hence the Victorian Parliament—­in this resembling its creator, the British Parliament—­exercises an amount of legislative freedom unknown to most foreign representative assemblies.  It can, and does, legislate on education, on ecclesiastical topics, on the tenure of land, on finance, on every subject, in short, which can interest the Colony.  It provides for the raising of Colonial forces; it may levy taxes or impose duties for the support of the Victorian administration, or for the protection of Colonial manufactures.  It is not forbidden to tax goods imported from other parts of the Empire; it is not bound to abstain from passing ex post facto laws, to respect the sanctity of contracts, or to pay any regard to the commercial interests of the United Kingdom.  It may alter the Constitution on which its own powers depend, and, for example, extend the franchise or remodel the Upper House.  To understand the full extent of the authority possessed by the Victorian Parliament and the Victorian Ministry—­which is, in fact, appointed by the Parliament—­it should be noted that, while every branch of the administration (the courts, the police, and the Colonial forces) is, as in England, more or less directly under the influence or the control of the Cabinet, the Colonies