Page:Australia and the Empire.djvu/17

 It is lamentable, but very natural; for—as Sir Samuel Griffith, the late Radical Premier of Queensland, pointed out in an admirable address delivered in Wales during his recent visit to this country—If the so-called Imperial Parliament is to retain any of its imperial character, and to hold its rightful position as the paramount British Legislative Assembly in the world, it is above all things necessary that it should remain the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Once disintegrate the "Home" Parliament, and we leave no central legislative body whose decisions would carry any weight outside the limits of its local territory; and though I am not an advocate for creating a brand-new centralised Imperial Parliament to which all the Colonies shall send delegates—preferring an alliance of Great Britain and her Colonies, by means of the "restoration" of some of the ancient prerogatives of the Crown—yet I think no calamity could be greater than to degrade the great historic Parliament of Westminster into the position of a mere local assembly. Sir Samuel Griffith was, in my opinion, absolutely correct in his prognostication of the evil