Mr. Balfour spoke last Saturday at a luncheon to the
Dominion Premiers given by the Constitutional Club. He devoted the earlier part of his speech to an appreciation of the Party system, which, as he remarked, needed no apology. So far as human ingenuity had yet contrived, free institutions and representative government could not be carried on without it, and everyone knew that it was not inconsistent with national unity. Mr. Balfour proceeded to speculate upon the future of the Empire. Many regarded it merely as a transitory arrangement which would cease so soon as the younger nations had no further need of the protection of the Mother Country. He himself had other dreams. He could not help thinking that upon the solid basis of self-government " we shall build up something which the world has never yet seen which political dreamers in the past have never yet dreamed of—a coalition of free and self-governing communities who feel that they are never more themselves, never more masters of their own fate, than when they recognize that they are parts of a greater whole." That is a noble and we also believe practical vision nobly expressed.
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