The West Indies . Their Common Interest and Imperial Aim. 339 



Dominion becoming an independent nation, attached only by the slender 

 cord of sentiment, or, as one writer has put it, " A Federation providing 

 for the natural growth of colonies into nations possessing in matters 

 military, commercial and relating to treaties the fullest and most com- 

 plete autonomy." Secondly, the "attraction" or Federation thinkers, 

 who would see the component parts drawn closer together until we reach 

 a Federal Parliament ruling over the whole of the Empire as one United 

 Realm. Of this school I would quote a writer as saying : " The true idea 

 of Federation as applied to this Empire is embraced in a Federal Parlia- 

 ment, with its Federal executives having jurisdiction over all matters 

 that are Imperial. Nothing short of this would meet the political genius 

 of our people and if such a policy be impracticable, then permanent Impe- 

 rial Unity can never be, and this stately structure, the British Empire, 

 must fall, even as it has risen." 



The Via Media. 



That is the present extremely interesting position, and even if one 

 rejects the first alternative as being anti-imperial, one finds that some of 

 the leading publicists of the Dominions hesitate to accept the second as 

 implying a certain abrogation of rights on the part of the Dominions and 

 as bringing them into subjection, in a measure at least, to the dictates of 

 a Parliament in London. I cannot help feeling that those are right who 

 think that a solution will be found, as oft-times before, in a via media. 

 This may be through what was once the Colonial Conference, assembling 

 once every four years, and which has now developed into the Imperial 

 Conference, with an established Secretariat. 



If this were to become an annual or a permanent Conference, if the 

 experiment of giving it representation on the Council of Imperial Defence 

 were developed, if it were consulted in matters of foreign policy — and of 

 this we have already seen the beginning in the Foreign Office taking Mr. 

 Borden into its council last summer — some think that we should find the 

 nucleus of an Imperial Council which would go far to satisfy the colonies 

 in their cry for a voice in foreign affairs and prevent their being plunged 

 into international conflicts against their will — in fact to solve the problem 

 of Imperial Federation. 



Difficulties of Political Union. 

 Now, let us hark back to the West Indies. Supposing, as is most 

 likely, that one of the two latter alternatives occur, supposing that some 

 form of Federal or Imperial Council is eventually created, the. Dominions 

 would be represented, and surely a United West Indies would also claim 

 a place. This then must be considered, would British Guiana and the 

 West Indies be the better to fight out their own destiny, unrepresented 

 as now at the Imperial Conference, unrepresented as they are now even 

 on the Dominion Trade Commission, or would they be wiser so to shape 

 their steps that their representatives may eventually be able to take their 

 set seats at whatever Council may be called into being and take their 

 share in the business of the Empire ? That is a problem the solution of 



