THE TRUE TEMPER OF EMPIRE. 



298 



Crown Colonies to adopt an organised method for the inter- 

 change of ideas and information between all parts of the Empire 

 as to matters of legal importance and the promotion of unity of 

 law and procedure. The Society justly claims that by the 

 method adopted each member or part of the Empire may now 

 easily ascertain the legislative methods and w^ork of all other 

 parts. The many Statute Books have by means of annual 

 summaries, digests and indices, published by the Society, been 

 made accessible as they never were before. The activity of the 

 Society has recently been consolidated in the publication of a 

 work entitled The Legislation of the Emjoire, edited under its 

 direction by Mr. C. E. A. Bedwell. It presents a survey of the 

 enactments of more than eighty legislative assemblies in the 

 British Empire. 



Intimately associated with the problem of uniformity in 

 legislation is the problem of uniformity of judicial decision, and 

 among the questions urged for consideration by the Imperial 

 Conference the constitution of an Imperial Court of Appeal 

 for the United Kingdom, the Dominions, the Crown Colonies 

 and India is certainly not the least important. 



Of Counsel. 



In the term Counsel I include, for my present purpose, the 

 constitutional advisers of the Sovereign, representing the 

 group of advisers from whom Kings, in Bacon's time, took 

 counsel, and in dealing with whom care and circumspection was 

 needed to avoid dangers likely to arise. The main principles 

 underlying the Sovereign's relations to his constitutional 

 advisers in the government of the United Kingdom are, in 

 brief, that the Sovereign is irresponsible ; that for every act of 

 his prerogative his ministers are responsible to Parliament. 

 The recognition of these principles has been followed by a 

 recognition of the duty of the Sovereign to select as his 

 ministers persons enjoying the confidence of Parliament, and 

 to retain them as his advisers so long, and only so long, as that 

 confidence is continued. 



It is not necessary to trace in detail the stages of evolution 

 which have established these principles in the constitution of the 

 United Kingdom. What concerns us is rather to consider their 

 adaptation to the constituent parts of the Empire. 



Our colonial policy has passed through three well-defined 

 stages. In the first the Colonies were left free to govern them- 



