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an effective weapon of tyranny, but against none will that weapon be used with more force than against the House of Commons. Few will be found to deny that of late years the prestige and power of the House of Commons has suffered severely from the encroachments of the Cabinet, and from the increasing thraldom of the party machine. The decadence has been only too marked. The degrading incidents of election time; the undisputed sway of the caucus; the lavish expenditure of electioneering promises,-all these have lowered the estimation of the House: and the yoke contrived by the Cabinet, under which it has submissively bowed its neck and fettered itself by closure and guillotine, has destroyed its effectiveness as a debating assembly. Could a more potent weapon be devised for its further degradation than a second chamber framed according to the ideas, and forced to do the bidding, of the executive of the day?

In the attempt to reconstruct the House of Lords, then, the House of Commons may create an effective instrument of attack upon its own remaining but diminished powers. And is it not eminently likely that the nation may think that other questions besides the fitness of the House of Lords to discharge its task are involved in this discussion? Will calm consideration lead it to the conclusion that a popular assembly, fettered by the executive, reduced day

VOL. CLXXXVIII.-NO. MCXL.

by day more and more to the function of registering Cabinet decisions, and held in check by a second chamber nominated by that Cabinet, is fit for the discharge of its functions as an Imperial authority?

For most of those larger Imperial functions which Parliament is supposed to discharge, it cannot be doubted that the House of Lords, as at present constituted, is far more fitted than the House of Commons. If, then, one part of the Legislature is either to be abolished or degraded, is it not inevitable that the nation should question the sufficiency of the remaining elected House for the burden and responsibility of Imperial administration? That burden and that responsibility are pressing for adjustment with more urgency every day. Can any one deny that the House of Commons is becoming day by day more adequate to the task? Is it so constituted as to exercise authority over a great body of practically independent nationalities? Does it so comport itself as to earn their respect? Will not the elimination of a second chamber cause these questions to be asked more imperiously than ever in respect of the House of Commons? Will that House "abide the question"?

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We have only to consider the mental attitude of the average Radical member to feel sad misgivings as to the answer that must be given. Profoundly ignorant himself of

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the problems to be faced in cision of the Colonies with the distant parts of the regard to the native franchise. Empire, he is filled with an It was the effect of good luck equally profound distrust of rather than sound judgment those who could alone re- that he did not insist upon move his ignorance, and he modifications that could only is almost pathetically per- have been carried out at the risk suaded that it is his first of dismembering the Empire. duty to thwart and harass all upon whom the burdens of Empire lie. He is tossed

about in a whirlpool of perplexity. His political horizon is bounded by a few abstract theories which have emerged from his parochial habit of mind, and from his experience of social affairs at home. He accepts these as axioms of universal application, and would enforce them even for those parts of the Empire where they are ludicrously inapplicable. On the other hand, one of his chosen axioms is the righteousness of local independence, and he finds it hard to reconcile his fidelity to that principle with his dislike of the views which he finds to prevail in the Colonies. The fact that he can in no way assume the right to represent the outlying portions of the Empire is far from inspiring him with self-distrust. The popular mandate conveyed by his local caucus arms him with the triple brass of selfconfidence. As a fact, he has not infrequently hazarded the maintenance of the Empire in obedience to his own selftaught theories. When the South African Constitution was under consideration, he was cajoled rather than persuaded not to reverse the de

It behoves us to keep these deficiencies most strongly in mind before we start on the task of tinkering the Constitution. It is almost certain that any constitutional change that will weaken the power of the second chamber, and commit all the destinies of the Empire to a House which is more and more dominated by the control of the executive, must provoke questions as to the adequacy of the House of Commons to that task, as to its right to represent the Empire with all its varied nationalities, and as to its competence competence to separate great Imperial issues from the petty and evanescent impulses that may too often affect our insular politics. We believe that it is only to a conviction of this truth, and not to any power of penetrating the secrets of the Conference, that the whispers of a a possible scheme of Home Rule all round, or some modified form of federation, as the possible outcome of that Conference, owe their origin. Men have become conscious that fundamental modifications of Parliamentary system must provoke the question, What is to be the Parliament of the Empire? The present position is essentially unsound and dangerous. Either the Parlia

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ment is the Imperial sovereign power or it is not. If it is, and if it is to be represented only by one House, then it is certain that the irresponsible dominance of democracy must speedily bring about a collision with what are now powerful nationalities, which will not submit to its diotation; and that the dismemberment of the Empire is only a question of time. If it is not, then where are we to find, or how are we to create, an Imperial bond of union?

Such a question opens up an illimitable series of perplexing problems. If we are to have an Imperial body, how is it to be constituted? What are to be the limits of its powers? Through what agency is it to enforce its decrees? Who are to be its executive officers? What functions of Parliament are to be assigned to it? If it is to deal with questions of Imperial defence, how are these to be separated from Finance, and how are the independent financial powers of the House of Commons to be reconciled with submission to any Imperial assembly? If we are to have a series of independent legislatures, to which of these legislatures is to be committed the power of deciding who are to be the immediate advisers of the Crown? We do not propose to enter upon the discussion of these problems. We only wish to raise a warning against any possible invitation to combine some such Imperial assembly with a network of local legislatures, which will

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mean the final debasement of the British Parliament. Attractive baits will no doubt be held out held out to reconcile Home Rule all round. The overburden of Parliamentary work will be pleaded, and the inadequacy of time. The task of Parliament, we shall be told, is beyond human powers and must be lightened. Let us take, it will be urged, the easy and obvious method of relieving it. We utterly distrust these baits and disbelieve these remedies. We see in such a policy nothing but the first stage in a process of dismemberment. We fervently pray that the Unionist party may hold itself clear of any such delusive snares.

But the fact remains that this constitutional agitation has already, in the calm of an armistice in party warfare, changed its import and its meaning, and now points, unless wise counsels can bring a successful result from the Conference, to a long vista of far-reaching and revolutionary change, involving every part of our Constitution. A petty jealousy against the House of Lords, stimulated for party purposes, has already turned men's thoughts to problems of far deeper meaning and far wider range. A section of the House of Commons has assumed, without warrant in law or justification in national confidence, that it is the sole controlling force in the legislature. By doing so, it has inevitably arraigned itself before the bar of public opinion,

and has provoked the question landmarks of the Constitution,

of its adequacy as an Imperial authority. We ardently desire that prudence and statesmanship may assuage the petty jealousies of party rivalry, and save us from the weary and fruitless labour of reconstructing the foundations of our Constitution. We pray still more earnestly that if these baffling problems are raised, the nation may never be tempted, for the sake of apparent ease and conciliation, to attempt the quack remedy of Home Rule, or any colourable imitation of it. But of this, at least, we are firmly convinced that the nation has availed itself of the pause in party strife to reconsider the whole position; that it is in no mood to accept reckless or revolutionary change; that it recognises that it is its own prerogative of final judgment, quite as much as the authority of the House of Lords, which is assailed; and that if it is unluckily compelled to revise the

it will be content with no such partial revision as would leave the House of Commons, as at present constituted, the uncontrolled repository of Imperial authority. If the Empire and its Constitution are to pass through the furnace of revolution, there must be much more than the privileges of the House of Lords that will perish in the flames.

We await, as in duty and in loyalty bound, the result of the Conference. If it should succeed in assuaging the fires of contention, it will be well. If it should fail, we know the problems that must face us. We are content to be patient, so long as the demand for patience rests on solid grounds. But we must be vigilant, and we must be armed for the fight. Patience must not be allowed to beget supineness. We cannot sacrifice principle to party convenience: nor lay down our arms in obedience to tactics of dilatory expediency.

Printed by William Blackwood and Sons.

BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.

No. MCXLI.

NOVEMBER 1910. VOL. CLXXXVIII,

OCEAN ISLAND.

SCATTERED Over the immen- and Ellice Islands' Protectorsity of the Western Pacific, and under and about the girdle of the equator, there may be seen upon the map of the world points less than pin-pricks, which represent the islands of Micronesia. Of these the principal groups are the Caroline, Marshall, Gilbert, and Ellice Islands - the first two forming a German, the latter a British Protectorate. South of the Marshall Islands and west of the Gilberts lie two small islands only 180 miles apart. The northernmost

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ate. There are few more lonely wastes of water in the world than those where lie these islands; and Panapa, of which I shall attempt to give some account, was not discovered until 1804 by the ship Ocean, from which vessel it has derived its English name; while Pleasant Island, or Nauru, was first seen by the Hunter in 1798. Ocean Island lies only fifty-two miles south of the equator, and in the full rush of the equatorial current, which, streaming across the mid-Pacific from east to west, runs past the island with a varying strength of from one to three miles an hour. From the early years of the last century the island was a wellknown calling-place for whaling-ships, which came there to buy "hogs" and to diversify the monotonous sea rations of their year-long cruises. But although these visits were no

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