As to the tie between England and her Colonies, said
Mr. Balfour, is any Imperial statesman content with its efficiency ?. Would we not all draw it much closer if we could ? Is it reasonable to suppose that Australia and New Zealand can ever be to us what Scotland and Wales are ? We are glad to cherish our ties to the Colonies for want of something better, but we should think very little of those ties if they were the substitutes for a much stronger tie. Our bond with the Colonies is a tie representing a certain community of sentiment, but not a tie representing a community of institutions ; and a tie which represents no community of institutions cannot be expected to stand the strain and stress of serious political exigencies. That is most true, and Mr. Balfour might have added, that with a country so close to us as Ireland, a great deficiency in community of sentiment may be best made up for by community of institutions, whereas the relinquishing of the latter is quite certain not to lead to the growth of the former.
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