A PROBLEM OF FEDERATION UNDER THE CROWN. 
G89 
pass through a single ring, but they would still be seven. Thus one 
great advantage of federation -that in external relations the Common- 
wealth should appear one and indivisible, has a startling inroad made 
upon it, whilst even in purely local matters a measure of Imperial 
dependence is retained. 
The fact is that every suggestion for the representation of the 
Queen in the States must create anomalies. Between the Canadian 
plan and the Commonwealth” plan the possibilities of such repre- 
sentation are exhausted. We are on the horns of a dilemma; the 
attempt to preserve the external unity of the Dominion lands the 
Canadian provinces in dependency on the Dominion ; the attempt to 
preserve the independence of the States from the Commonwealth 
leaves them severally dependent on the Empire, and breaks in upon 
the external unity of the Commonwealth. 
This difficulty arises from the supposed necessity of representing 
the Queen in the State legislature. Now the question presents itself : 
Need the Queen be represented in the State legislatures at all ? The 
sole duty of a Queen’s representative in a colony, in his capacity as 
Queen’s representative, is to look after Imperial interests ; to take care 
that the Government of the colony shall do nothing which is contrary 
to the interests or policy of the Empire. But under a federation, the 
State Government deals only with domestic matters. Imperial 
interests will be sufficiently guarded by the bond between the Empire 
and the Commonwealth. Communication between the Empire and the 
separate States will not only be unfederal, it will be unnecessary; the 
Imperial Government is not concerned with State matters, and the real 
difficulty of satisfactorily representing the Crown in the States is due 
to the fact that the Crown there is wholly superfluous. 
To see the truth of this we have only to look at Canada again. 
The Crown, as I have pointed out, is not really represented in the 
Canadian provinces. It is only by a fiction that the second-hand 
royalty of the Lieutenant-Governor can be called “ the Crown be 
really represents the Dominion Government. The Imperial Govern- 
ment — the “ Crown ” proper— has no control over the Provincial 
legislatures, no veto on provincial laws; its dealings are with the 
Dominion alone. Here, then, is an instance in which the Imperial 
Government has foregone its right of representation and its right of 
veto, without any alarming consequences. If now the Dominion 
control over the provinces were abolished, leaving them free to do 
what they chose within the limits of the Constitution, the principle I 
contend for would be completely established, without one whit 
detracting from the authority of the Crown in the Dominion. The 
Provincial Governments, which arc already independent of the 
Imperial Government, would then he independent of the Dominion 
Government as well; for all practical purposes they would be, within 
the limits of the Constitution, sovereign Governments in the sense in 
which an American State is sovereign ; whilst the Dominion would 
remain a British dependency as at present. 
In applying the principle to Australia, however, one distinction 
must be noted between a Canadian province and an Australian State 
(at least as usually contemplated). By the Canadian Constitution 
the powers of the Provincial legislatures are strictly defined ; they have 
only the powers specially conferred upon them by the Constitution 
