VENEZUELA AND AFTER 351 



cussion in the imperial conference to a debate 

 on social legislation in the House of Commons 

 can hardly fail to carry with him some infection 

 of the ideas that are current coin in Australia. 

 Wherever the delegates from beyond the seas 

 are brought in contact unofficially with the 

 political issues most agitated in the United 

 Kingdom, it is not the conservative views that 

 are supported by the recitals of experience in 

 the colonies. What to the English radical is 

 ultimate ideal, to the colonial conservative is a 

 commonplace of actuality. Even Irish home 

 rule, that smacks so perilously of disintegra 

 tion to many of the wisest minds of England, 

 offers nothing of terror to the colonial; for he 

 sees autonomy and unity reconciled in diverse 

 but sufficient ways, in the Dominion of Canada, 

 the Commonwealth of Australia, and the Union 

 of South Africa. Popular self-government is 

 so fundamental in the political philosophy of 

 the English beyond the seas that the full appli 

 cation of the principle to the United Kingdom 

 appears only normal. A Canadian or an Aus 

 tralian is not likely to see anything alarming in 

 a project for the transformation of the govern 

 ment of the United Kingdom in the federal 

 sense; while the union of all parts of the British 



