Sir Dudley de Chair, the Governor of New South Wales,
in a recent speech, as reported in the Australian Press, stated that the centre of importance in the British Empire was gradually moving towards Australia and MI the course of time. the Commonwealth would be the 1 centre of the Empire. It is true that since the beginning of this century the centre of gravity of world affairs has been moving towards the Pacific, and undoubtedly in a! hundred years' time Australia will be one of the great • nations of the world. Its population to-day is nearly twice that of the thirteen original colonies at the time of the American Revolution. On many occasion Canadian speakers have stated their belief that the centre of the British Commonwealth would cross the Atlantic to the Dominion, but if their hopes are to be ,realized the Canadian Government will have to encourage more energetically the flow of desirable settlers. Commenting on Sir Dudley de Chair's speech an Australian writer asks :—" Who can say whether the Empire as we know it to-day may not become too cumbersome a thing for the machinery of Empire government ? May we not envisage something more like a confederation of English- speaking nations, under one flag, with Australia the largest of them ? "
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