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STEPS TO IMPERIAL FEDERATION. statesmen will be prepared to make another great constitutional experiment until they have satisfactorily overcome the difficulties inseparable from the working of new constitutions, with which the Federal Parliament is confronted. In South Africa the efforts of statesmen and people must for some time be devoted to repairing the damages wrought by the long struggle now happily brought to a conclusion. Responsible government must be built up, not only in the Transvaal and Orange River Colonies, but in Rhodesia; and the Federal Government for South Africa, to which many South African statesmen were looking long before the recent troubles, must be established before South Africans will be in a position to discuss any proposal for Imperial Federation. While every Canadian for the past thirty-five years, and every Australian for the last two years, has lived under three Parliaments, each dealing with a distinct class of business, we, in the mother country, have been accustomed to the whole of our business, Imperial and domestic, being transacted in the Parliament which sits at Westminster. Our Empire has grown up and expanded under the aegis of that Parliament. The Government of Scotland, and the Government of Ireland, have been centralised in its hands. The population of the country has multiplied, and with the growth of population have come increasing demands for legislative and administrative action. Not until the British people recognise the impossibility of transacting the business of the Empire and of these islands with less machinery than 300 years ago, not until they appreciate that a distinction can be drawn between Imperial and domestic questions, will they be able to understand what is meant by Imperial Federation. 87