The British system of Colonial self-government has so far proved workable because of the exceptional circumstances in which it originated.  But its success cannot be regarded as wholly unqualified.  The failure to provide any direct representation of Colonial interests and aspirations in the Imperial Parliament may not have mattered as far as foreign policy and defence were concerned.  But it did affect the colonies most seriously from the economic point of view, for it precluded them from pressing with any effect for the development of inter-Imperial communications, or from resisting the abolition of the system of preferential trade which meant so much to their prosperity.  Under the influence of a narrowly selfish and short-sighted policy, inspired by English manufacturing interests, Canada saw the stream of commerce and population pass by her shores on its way to the United States.  The relative progress of the British Colonies and of the United States since the abolition of preference is some measure of the economic weakness of a political system which has no common trade policy.  In any case the British Colonial system, as we have known it is inevitably moving towards its crisis.  The conditions under which it originated are fast disappearing.  The commercial and political expansion of Europe, of America, of Asia, are bringing the Dominions more and more into the arena of international conflict.  The growth of foreign navies is forcing them to realise the necessity of taking a larger part in their own defence.  Their growing national self-consciousness demands not only that they should cease to be dependent on the Mother Country for their safety, but also that they should exercise control over the foreign policy of which defence is merely the instrument.  There are only two possible solutions to the problem which is now developing:  the one is complete separation, the other is partnership in an Imperial Union in which British subjects in the Dominions shall stand on exactly the same footing, and enjoy the same powers and privileges in Imperial affairs, as British subjects in the United Kingdom.

The conditions—­geographical, economic, political—­which, in the Colonies, made the grant of free institutions, unaccompanied by some form of political federation or union, even a temporary success, were, indeed, exceptional.  None of them were present in the circumstances of Ireland before the Union.  They are not present to-day.  Geographically the United Kingdom is a single compact island group, of which Ireland is by no means the most outlying portion.  No part of Ireland is to-day, or ever was, as inaccessible from the political centre of British power as the remoter parts of the Highlands, not to speak of the Shetlands or Hebrides.  Racially, no less than physically, Ireland is an integral part of the United Kingdom, peopled as it is with the same mixture of racial elements as the main island of the group.  The blend of Celt with Dane, with Normans