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 which have been forced on her attention. New Caledonia, the New Hebrides, New Guinea, have each in turn been used by the bolder sort of colonial politician as an excuse to force the hand of a supposedly neglectful Colonial Office. Armed vessels have been sent from New Zealand on missions which the Imperial Government has been forced to disavow. The Chinese and Japanese questions are, perhaps naturally, considered in our colonies with sole reference to local predilections and convenience, and with no regard to the exigencies of British diplomacy. The arbitrary exclusion by Natal, for example, and Western Australia, of the Queen-Empress's Indian subjects, some of them wearing war-medals on their breasts; or by New Zealand of Austrian immigrants; are not, perhaps, great matters at present. But there are coming questions in the Pacific which, when the Australian Dominion makes her voice heard, will not be small matters at all. Meanwhile, the position, in regard to our half-veiled, half-acknowledged, ascendency is that it is asserted from time to time, as occasion demands and as circumstances may permit, by the Colonial Office, through the Governors; and is generally, perhaps, understood to be based upon a latent claim of the British Parliament, as such, to supremacy; a claim which is unconstitutional in itself, and the only historical basis of which derives from the days of the great Whig encroachment. Government without representation is foreign to the spirit of the constitution. The less Parliament interferes with India and the Colonies, the better it will be for the Colonies, for India, and for the Empire. The Crown conducts our foreign policy through its advisers of the Privy Council, who possess the confidence of Parliament. Sir John Macdonald understood the theoretical position when, in shaping a Canadian Privy Council, he foreshadowed a Kingdom of Canada; for in the three great secondary