Page:Problems of Empire.djvu/90

 A Paper read before the Royal Colonial Institute, November 11th, 1902.

'Before calling upon Mr. Brassey,' the Chairman, Sir Frederick Crichton Young, said, 'I should like to quote from the utterances of two of our most prominent Cabinet Ministers on the subject of Imperial Federation. In his striking and masterful address in opening the Colonial Conference in the month of June last, Mr. Chamberlain used these remarkable words:—"I may be considered perhaps to be a dreamer, or too enthusiastic, but I do not hesitate to say that in my opinion the political federation of the Empire is within the limits of possibility." Still more striking if possible are the remarks of the Prime Minister in his speech last night at the Guildhall, in the course of which he said, "After all, I suppose most of us cherish, I will not say the dream—most of us cherish the hope, that if not in our time yet at no distant date, there will be not merely the legal and sentimental ties joining us to our great dependencies, but that something in the nature of a Constitutional Union may be discovered which will enable us to conduct together affairs of common interest."'

Mr. Brassey then read the following paper:—

In the last Paper of last session, Mr. Archibald Colquhoun dealt with Imperial Federation in its relation 72