THE TRUE TEMPER OF EMPIRE. 



297 



America Act ; in 1900 the Australian Colonies were federated 

 by the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act ; in 1909 

 the South African Colonies were unified by the South Africa 

 Act ; in 1910 New Zealand was declared to be a Dominion. 



The formal recognition of the colonies of this class as 

 Dominions, owing allegiance to the Crown but independent of 

 the control of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, has been 

 followed by much discussion of schemes having for their purpose 

 a further constitutional development by the establishment of 

 some form of Imperial Council to deal with the relations of the 

 Dominions to each other, to the United Kingdom, to the Crown 

 Colonies and India, and to foreign States, with the corollary 

 question of the organisation of an Imperial system of defence. 

 History will recognise the true temper of empire in the design 

 of the constitutional apparatus styled the Imperial Conference 

 for the discussion of all these questions. 



The Australian Act of 1850 led to an amazing amplitude of 

 experiment with a view to adapting its principles to every 

 administrative unit of the empire. Imperial Acts, local 

 Ordinances and Orders in Council followed in rapid succession 

 with a resulting confusion that may be studied in Sir Henry 

 Jenkyns' British Rule and Jurisdiction heyond the Seas. But 

 throughout the confusion there can always be traced a line of 

 bifurcation between the self-governing colonies and the Crown 

 Colonies, following the natural cleavages of the temperate and 

 tropical zones. Coincidently with the gradual emancipation of 

 the self-go A^erning colonies experience was proving that our 

 tropical colonies did not fulfil the conditions of a homogeneous 

 population essential to the success of the form of government 

 contemplated by the Act of 1850. It was necessary therefore 

 to cast about for constitutions adapted to administrative units 

 including communities of widely varied capacities, and in 

 widely different stages of civilisation. It was wisely determined 

 to limit the constitutional development of the Crown Colonies 

 to the type described in the second of the three constitutional 

 forms that have been enumerated, in other words the type 

 created by the immediate provisions of the New South Wales 

 Act of 1842, without the provisions of the Act of 1850 designed 

 to form a bridge to the full liberties of self-government. 



The essentials of the type of Legislature set up under this 

 form of constitution may be briefly described. It is a Legisla- 

 ture of three dimensions — including in a single Chamber ex 

 officio, nominated, and elected members. The ejc officio members 

 are appointed by the Crown in virtue of their tenure of certain 



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