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 Rh this care and protection has she at her com mand the strength of a full imperial arma ment. Thus she conducts her imperial rule with the minimum of benefit and the maxi mum of burden to herself. For her, "union is not strength," but exhaustion. Now it is plain that this great potential nation forgoes its full strength for lack of a suitable constitutional structure of govern ment. There is no joint body to attend to joint interests. The Empire, highly devel oped in local government, is insufficiently organized for collective purposes. It has no imperial revenue because it has no represen tative branch of government to administer such revenue. It cannot call forth its entire military and naval power so long as the dis posal thereof is left in the hands of England alone and so long as she alone conducts the Empire's dealings with foreign countries leading up to war and decides as to its decla ration. . . . The entire Empire suffers from this defect of central power, but Eng land most, the colonies least. . . . Central power incommensurate with cen tre responsibility; that is what we find to be the Empire's constitutional weakness. In the long run, duties and rights must always be lodged in the same hands. England can not perform imperial duties if she gives away imperial powers. They must again be joined. Whether joined in the colonies,— which already have all the rights,—and so colonial separation be the outcome; or in England where now all the duties are con centrated (or in a Federal government),— and so a strong, united Empire be the out come,—that is for the future to an swer. . . . Without imperial unity of action and im perial strength, there cannot, of course, be national action at all; and to the extent to which these fail the empire constitutionally is not a nation. Greater centralization alone can make it one; and in an empire this is to be gained in but two ways, by Despotism and by Federalism. To an empire which treads the constitutional path, the latter al ternative alone remains.

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SOME of the "Interesting Aspects of the Russo-Japanese War" are discussed by F. Baty, in The Law Times. Among other mat ters commented upon are these: It may not be out of place to indicate briefly the lines on which discussion of the international questions already raised by the Far Eastern conflict must proceed. It is common ground that no formal declaration of war need precede actual hostilities; and, indeed, most modern wars have commenced without one. Whether this would apply to a case of absolute surprise, like the sudden invasion of the Palatinate by Louis XIV., may be doubtful. But no such point arises in the present circumstances, where the dip lomatic tension was such as to dispense with the necessity of any declaration. The enemy, in such a state of things, is not taken una wares, is (or should be) perfectly on guard, and is free to take measures which may cause extreme future embarrassment and are only to be stopped by force. A formal warn ing of the intention to attack is therefore unnecessary, and perhaps its disappearance is not to be regretted. Whichever side fired the first shot, it is quite clear that the operations against the Russian fleet in Port Arthur were legiti mate acts of war. However complete the actual surprise, it could only have been one which should have been foreseen; and it now appears that the Russians were, in point of fact, draw up in line of battle to meet the opposing forces. Under these circumstances, to talk of treachery in connection with the Japanese strategy is absurd, and can only console a St. Petersburg audience. From the accounts which appear of the seizure of. six Norwegian ships laden with Russian coal, one infers that Japan includes coal in the class of contraband articles, or at least in that species of merchandise which may become contraband if destined for the naval or military use of the enemy. It will be remembered that the position of coal (which is analogous to the naval stores, tim ber, tar, hemp, etc., of Napoleonic times) was the subject of much discussion in 1870.