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 secretary. The proposal is closely akin to one existing organization—the War Office and Admiralty, the Defence Committee, and the Secretary's Department—which promises to work harmoniously enough, though it is that most difficult structure, an old institution shaped into conformity with a new theory.

No scheme, to be sire, is of any value at present, save as a basis for argument; but, if the underlying principle is accepted, it is not beyond the ingenuity of man to work out the details. And the cardinal point is that any constitutional union must proceed on the executive side, and not on the legislative. We must begin humbly with small emendations, waiting to see what new conditions the centripetal forces will create. Provided we have the rudiments from which unity can spring, we may well be content to move slowly, since 'the counsels to which Time hath not been called, Time will not ratify.' The 'trustee' doctrine is sufficient for our present needs, and by the time it is too narrow we shall have got enough material wherewith to fashion a new one. But it is also worth remembering that it is a very hard-worked doctrine, and that it will not always be equal to the strain. It is the part of wisdom, therefore, to lay down in good time the keel of the vessel into which we mean to change; for state-building, like shipbuilding, is a slow matter, and the man who waits without preparation till the end comes is apt to find himself in the water.

'The Crown,' said Coke in Calvin's Case, 'is the hieroglyphic of the laws.' If that hieroglyphic is the constitutional foundation-stone of our Empire, those laws which expound it are an integral part of the basis. We in England, accustomed to regard English law as an amorphous historical growth applying only to England and Ireland, are slow to realize the way in which our insular system has spread its roots into the remote places of the globe. Our Colonies took it with them, and in most cases it is their domestic law, amplified by their