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STEPS TO IMPERIAL FEDERATION. to defence, to trade, and to representation. This Paper will be devoted mainly to Federation in its political or constitutional aspect. Questions of party politics are excluded, and rightly excluded, from the purview of the Royal Colonial Institute. But Imperial Federation—the problem of Imperial Unity—is not a party question. It represents an idea which appeals to men of all political parties and to men who belong to none. It is a question which is high above the level of ordinary party politics, and which can only be treated, as it ought to be treated in a gathering such as this, far removed from party strife.

It is over thirty years since our Chairman of to-night first advocated Imperial Federation. At that time, and indeed for several years later, the ideas of the Manchester School were still prevalent. The Manchester School held that the Colonies were a burden to the mother country, and that the sooner they cut themselves adrift and became independent the better for the mother country and the better for themselves. The Colonial Institute was founded in 1868 to combat these views. The Imperial Federation League, formed in 1884, on the initiative of the late Mr. W. E. Forster, carried the work begun by the Colonial Institute a step further. The objects and views of the League were thus defined:

1. To secure by Federation the permanent unity of the Empire.

2. That no scheme of Federation should interfere with the existing rights of local Parliaments as regards local affairs.

3. That any scheme of Federation should combine on an equitable basis the resources of the Empire for the 73