arbitrary power has been, and as long as it exists I believe it will continue to be, a perpetual cause of colonial discontent and of never-ending discord between the colonies and the Imperial Government. For all the colonies complain bitterly of the power of the Colonial Office; and these complaints are frequently but too well founded. How is it possible they can be otherwise than well founded? Consider who are the persons who are entrusted with this arbitrary power. The heads of the Colonial Office change with every change of Government. They are absentee rulers, living at the distance of many thousands of miles from their subjects. They never have ocular experience of the condition of the colonies. They have no personal interest in the well-being of the colonists. They are always obliged to trust to second-hand and partial information with regard to the colonies. They are therefore generally ignorant, and, worse than ignorant, they are generally misinformed about colonial questions. They are said to be responsible to Parliament; but that responsibility is a farce; for we cannot spare time to attend to colonial affairs; we cannot obtain accurate and important information about the colonies; we are, therefore, necessarily ignorant; and our system of colonial government may with accuracy be described as government by the misinformed, with responsibility to the ignorant. This kind of government is most bitterly distasteful to men of our race and habits. How should we feel if we were colonists distant a myriad of miles from our mother country, and were liable to have our Acts of Parliament disallowed at the whim and caprice of some noble lord at the Antipodes, responsible to a Parliament sitting at Sydney, and knowing nothing about us? How should we like to have to wait three years before we could be certain that our Acts of Parliament are laws? Why does the noble lord retain this arbitrary power to the Colonial Office? The noble lord said that the Colonial Office is the guardian of Imperial interests, and ought therefore to retain the power of disallowing Acts of the colonial legislatures, lest those legislatures should make laws injurious to imperial interests. I readily acknowledge that means should be taken to prevent the colonial legislatures from making laws injurious to imperial interests; but I deny that it is necessary for this purpose that the Colonial Office should retain arbitrary power. I would propose a substitute for that power, by means of which, I believe that imperial interests would be guarded without producing colonial discontent. I would divide all executive and legislative powers, with reference to a colony, into two distinct classes. One class I would call imperial powers, because they ought to be strictly reserved to the Imperial Government; and they ought to be so reserved, because they are indispensable for the maintenance of the unity of the empire, and for the management of the common concerns of the whole empire. Therefore they ought on no account to be delegated to the colonies, and the colonial legislatures ought not to be entitled to make any laws affecting or derogating from imperial powers; for, if they were entitled so to do, the unity of the empire would be destroyed. Now, all other executive and legislative powers with reference to a colony, except the imperial ones, I call local powers; because they have reference to the management of the local concerns of a colony, as distinguished from the common concerns of the whole empire. It is evidently of great and primary importance to this country, and to the empire as a whole, in what manner imperial powers are exercised; therefore imperial powers, as I have just said, ought to be strictly reserved to the Imperial Government, and no colonial legislature should be entitled to make any law affecting or derogating from imperial powers. On the other hand, it is evidently a matter of little or secondary importance to this country, and to the empire as a whole, in what manner local powers are exercised, provided only that the colonists are not dissatisfied with the Imperial Government on account of the manner in which the local powers are exercised. Now, it is impossible for men on one side of the globe to manage the affairs of Englishmen on the other side of the globe without producing intense dissatisfaction. On the other hand, if the colonists were to obtain the uncontrolled management of their local affairs, and if in any respect they were to mismanage their local affairs, for so doing they would | have themselves to blame and nobody else. Therefore I infer that we ought to delegate to the colonies all local powers, and entitle them to pass any law affecting their local concerns. Consequently, I infer that we ought to deprive the Colonial Office of its present arbitrary power to disallow all Acts of the colonial legislatures, and to limit the power of the Colonial Office to questions affecting imperial powers. For this purpose it would be necessary carefully to enumerate and accurately to define the powers which ought to be held to be imperial powers. Now the noble lord says that it would be impossible to draw the line of distinction between imperial and local powers. The noble lord, with his numerous occupations, cannot spare time to attend very carefully to these subjects. But I am sure that if the noble lord would apply his energies to the question, he could draw the line of distinction. For a definition of imperial powers has not only been attempted, but made successfully, by those Anglo-Saxon statesmen who formed the constitution of the United States of America. I proposed last Session that a Royal Commission should be appointed to prepare a measure of colonial reform. I regret much that the House did not assent to that proposal; for by this time the House would have possessed a more accurate enumeration of imperial powers than that which it can expect from me; but which I am prepared at this moment to make if the Committee would bear with me for a few minutes. The Committee must understand that I propose that the colonial legislatures shall be restricted from making any law affecting or derogating from the following powers: [For an enumeration of imperial powers and of the restrictions proposed to be put upon the powers of the colonial legislatures, see speech of May 6, at page 365, and the constitution proposed for New South Wales, which is printed in the note.] It is evident that a colonial legislature might inadvertently, or even intentionally, exceed its powers, and pass an enactment in contravention of the restrictions put on its powers. I therefore propose that such an enactment shall be invalid; and that there shall be a supreme court, which shall have both original and appellate jurisdiction in all questions touching the validity of a colonial enactment; and I propose that the Queen in Council shall be that supreme court. I have now described the main features of the constitution which I would propose for the Australian colonies, and by which I would substitute for the arbitrary power of the Colonial Office a legally defined power. Now, there is nothing which men of our race hate more than arbitrary power, and nothing which they respect more than a legally defined power. At present the colonial legislatures do not know what laws they may and what laws they may not make. In fact, they may at present make any laws whatever, affecting imperial interests in any manner whatever, provided the Colonial Office does not disallow them within a certain period of time. On the other hand, the colonial legislatures cannot make any law which the Colonial Office may not disallow. I propose, therefore, to enable the colonial legislatures to know precisely what laws they may make, and what laws they must abstain from making; and I propose to settle all disputes upon this subject by means of the decisions of a judicial tribunal. I have now answered the challenge of the noble lord, that those who would effect reform in our colonial system should state what in their opinion. the nature of that reform should be. In order to present my principles in a practical shape, I have, with the aid of some legal friends, prepared the |