A PROBLEM OF FEDERATION UNDER T1IE CROWN. 
685 
number of the unemployed will increase, but the sweated classes will 
disappear; and it is held that it is easier to provide for the unem- 
ployed than to give adequate and effective relief to the sweated. 
Possibly ; but it is well to sec the principle at the root of this 
plea. It is assumed that Society is bound to provide for the unem- 
ployed. Those who can get work are to be paid fair wages. But those 
who are excluded from the artificially restricted circle of employment 
are to be maintained at the expense of their more fortunate neighbours. 
Of the reasonableness of this plea I have nothing to say at present. 
.But it must be taken for granted if a living wage is to be given. There 
must be a guarantee from the State that the unemployed will be sup- 
ported at public expense. 
A familiar fact will show the truth of this statement. The rates 
fixed by trades unions are practically an attempt at a living wage. 
Now, in good times they .are maintained without difficulty; hut in had 
times they are not adhered to. They may bo nominally maintained; 
hut the exceptions and evasions are so numerous that, for all practical 
purposes, the union rates are discarded. And this of necessity. There 
is no State provision for the unemployed ; and so the workers prefer 
to work at a lower rate of wage rather than run the risk of having no 
wages, and there is not even a promise of support from a benevolent 
Government. So it would he on a larger scale. Tor the guarantee 
of a living wage to ho effective, there must he a second guarantee 
that those thrown out of employment will he granted a satisfactory 
maintenance. 
The economic effect of this proposal is clear enough. The sweated 
class will disappear, or, to speak more accurately, will he reduced in 
numbers. But at all seasons, and especially at had seasons, the field 
of employment will be restricted, and the numbers of the unemployed 
largely increased. 
But, as the State must undertake to provide a satisfactory main- 
tenance for all those who cannot get work at a liberal rate of wages, 
the social effect is not so clear, and certainly the prospect is not 
inviting. 
5.-A PROBLEM OF FEDERATION UNDER THE CROWN.— 
THE REPRESENTATION OF THE CROWN IN COMMON- 
WEALTH AND STATES. 
By R. It. GARRAN , R.A. 
Canadian federation raised, and Australian federation raises, a 
problem with which the constitutionalists of America and Switzerland 
had nothing to do. They had to parcel out the sum total of political 
sovereignty among the States and the Nation. In our case, as in the 
case of Canada, the real “sovereignty” is outside the federation 
altogether; what wo have to parcel out is only a permissive quasi- 
sovereiguty of indefinite extent. The difficulty lies not merely in there 
being three grades of political entities instead of two- -the Empire, 
the Commonwealth, and the States; that would be quite simple in 
theory, if the federal relation were recognised throughout— the Empire 
being a federation of Commonwealths just as the Commonwealth would 
he a federation of States. That would he merely a case of federation 
