Their peoples
may desire that new order. But until it is achieved you must remember
that the British Empire belongs to the region of dream and not to that
of fact.
For many years now, apostles of reconstruction have been hammering out
the details of a scheme that shall unify the Empire on some sort of
Federal basis. For the new organism which they desire to create they
need a brain. Is this to be found in the Westminster Assembly, sometimes
loosely styled the "Imperial Parliament"? As things stand at present
such a suggestion is a mere counter-sense. That body has come to such a
pass as would seem to indicate the final bankruptcy of the governing
genius of England. All the penalties of political gluttony have
accumulated on it. Parliament, to put the truth a little brutally, has
broken down under a long debauch of over-feeding. Every day of every
session it bites off far more in the way of bills and estimates than it
even pretends to have time to chew. Results follow which it would be
indiscreet to express in terms of physiology. Tens of millions are
shovelled out of the Treasury by an offhand, undiscussed, perfunctory
resolution.
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