348 VENEZUELA AND AFTER 



could be thought of that did not involve un 

 thinkable readjustments in the government of 

 the United Kingdom, as to structure or policy 

 or both. In the eighties, however, conditions 

 in both foreign and domestic affairs brought 

 the unthinkable peremptorily under consid 

 eration. Germany s colonial ambitions and 

 Russia s advance on India suggested sickening 

 possibilities as to the fate of an Australasian 

 state that should lack the protection of the 

 British navy; Gladstone s proposal of home 

 rule for Ireland made the remodelling of the 

 British Government a staple of daily debate. 

 Under these circumstances a demand for some 

 strengthening of the bonds uniting colonies 

 and motherland became vigorously manifest 

 throughout her Majesty s dominions. 



The formula of this demand in the eighties 

 was &quot;imperial federation,&quot; on behalf of which 

 an imposing agitation was carried on for some 

 years. Official support for this particular form 

 of union was for various practical reasons slow 

 and scanty, and the movement under this 

 name lost its force in the early nineties, not 

 without having contributed, however, a great 

 impulse to the cause of preserving the empire 

 intact. Meanwhile a procedure for the discus- 



