TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. 229 



dominant in that Empire than England would be in a federal Britain. In most 

 ledoral States no one member is dominant; this is the case in Canada and 

 Australia as well ae 'in the United States and Switzerland. Exptricuce suggests 

 that it is better that no single member of a federal State should be able to out- 

 vote all the rest. These considerations lead to the suggestion that in a federal 

 Britain England should enter as a number of provinces rather than as one unit. 

 This would require a division of the country into suitable provinces, a division 

 which must be based primarily on its geography. Each province should be 

 comparable in population with Wales and Scotland. 



There are iu England a number of distinctive regions of this order of magni- 

 tude of which we may mention East Anglia, the Devon Peninsula, Yorkshire, and 

 the North Country.. The last two of these are more populous than Wales, and 

 the others have each more than a, million inhabitants. 



A division of England into such provinces should be based largely on a study 

 of the present distribution of the population. The existing distribution into 

 counties is, for the most part, based on divisions which grew up long before the 

 Industrial Revolution, and the resulting great increase and shift of the population 

 which has taken place in the last 150 years. Hence the new provinces cannot bo 

 based directly on the counties. The principles on which such a division could 

 be made may be set out as fodlow : — 



1. Provincial boundaries should be so drawn as to minimise interference with 

 the everyday movements and activities of the people. 



2. Each province should have a definite capital, which should be the real 

 focus of its regional life. 



3. The least province should contain a population sufficiently numerous to 

 justify self-government. 



4. No one province should be able to dominate the federation. 



5. Provincial boundaries should be drawn near watei-sheds rather than across 

 valleys, and very rarely along streams. 



6. The grouping of areas must pay, regard to local patriotism and tradition. 

 (Of these Nos. 5 and 6 may be regarded as corollaries of Nos. 1 and 2.) 

 There should be no effort to secure uniformity, of area or of population, among 



the provinces. Any such attempts would inevitably produce very unsatisfactory 

 and unstable groupings of population, and boundaries which would handicap 

 rather than facilit<ate effective organisation of public services in the provinces. 



Several of our larger i^rovincial cities have already become well-developed 

 regional capitals, centres of the economic and .social life and thought of populous 

 regions. Among these we may place Newcastle-on-Tyne, Leeds, Sheffield, 

 Nottingham, Manchester, Birmingham, and Bristol. Each of these is also an 

 important node in our road and railway systems, a university town, and the 

 seat of an important press. Hence each could well serve as a capital for one of 

 the provinces. 



The following Papers were then read :^ 



2. The Site of Westminster. By H. Eodwell Jones. 



The original importance of the site of Westminster seems to have lain in 

 the fact that it formed a sandy eminence rising slightly above the saltings of 

 the Thames flood-plain at a bend iu the river where the stream was probably 

 fordahle and where there was an easy passage for boats. There can be little 

 doubt that the Roman surface, which now lies some nine feet below high water, 

 lay originally at much the same height relatively to the level of the Thames 

 as the actual surface does to-day. Whether this change of conditions be due 

 to a gradual sinking of the Lower Thames Basin or to a gradual increase in 

 the rise of tide as a result of embanking it is difficult to decide. Probably both 

 influences have been at work. 



Thorney Island, on which the Abbey was built, is often spoken of as part 

 of a delta formed by the Tyburn. Geographically speaking, this is an unfor- 

 tunate description. It is not the habit of the "Thames tributaries to form 

 deltas. In almost every case the tributary stream enters the main river on 

 the outer curve of a meander. Westminster Hats lie opposite to tho outfall of 

 the Effra, those of Fiilhiun to the confluence of the Wandle; the formation of 

 1919. IT 



