IMPERIAL
FEDERATION
369
children who have grown to maturity and are taking care of themselves, partly of independent nations in friendly alliance, partly as common subjects of the same sovereign, whose authority is exercised in each by ministers of its own. Neither of these analogies is exact, for the position alters from year to year. So much the better. The re足 lation which now exists cannot be more than provisional; let us not try to shape it artificially, after a closet-made pattern. The threads of interest and kindred must be left to spin themselves in their own way. Meanwhile we can work together heartily and with good will where we need each other's co-operation. Difficulties will rise, perhaps, from time to time, but we can meet them as they come, and we need not anticipate them. If we are to be politically one, the organic fibres which connect us are as yet too immature to bear a strain. All that we can do, and all that at present we ought to try, is to act generously whenever our assist足 ance can be of use. The disposition of English statesmen to draw closer to the colonies is of recent growth. They cannot tell, and we cannot tell, how far it indicates a real change of attitude or is merely a passing mood. One thing, however, we ought to bear in mind, that the colonies sympathise one with another, and that wrong or neglect in any part of the Empire does not escape notice. The larger colonies desire to know what the recent professions of in足 terest are worth, and they look keenly at our treatment of their younger brothers who are still in our power. They are practical, they attend to results, they guard jealously their own privileges, but they are not so enamoured of con足 stitutional theory that they will patiently see their fellowcountrymen in less favoured situations swamped under the votes of the coloured races. Australians, Canadians, New Zealanders, will not be found enthusiastic for the extension of self-government in the West Indies, when they know that it means the extinction of their own white brothers B B