Page:The empire and the century.djvu/68

 JOHN BUCHAN

policy of Imperial consolidation can afford to disregard the formal aspect of such a union, which is embodied in questions of constitution and law. For one thing, this law and constitution are for the moment the only overt links of Empire, and as such are the first things which a wider development must reckon with. For another, the forms which accompany growth have an organic relation to that growth. If the banks are too narrow, the stream will overflow; and if they are unduly wide, it will be lost among sands and lagoons. If the Empire is destined to grow into self-conscious unity, it is important to see that our theory is adequate to the facts, and that a false constitutional doctrine embodied in too rigid forms does not set a Procrustean barrier to expansion. The pivot of the Empire is the Crown, and the peculiar interpretation of prerogative which is enshrined in our constitutional law. Our constitution, with its elasticity and generous recognition of local freedom, has alone made the Empire possible. To-day, in the absence of other supports, it is still a stalwart bulwark against disintegration. Our law, again, has either been bodily taken over by the daughter nations, or, through the medium of the ultimate appeal court, embodies and interprets not only the constitutional charters of the Colonies, but several alien legal systems which survive within their borders. Whatever the defects of these controlling agencies, it is impossible 37