Mr. Murray Smith, Agent-General for Victoria, publishes a cir- cular
from Mr. Service, Premier of that colony, convoking a " Con- vention " of the Australasian Colonies at Melbourne on Novem- ber 25th. Each colony is to send four delegates, and the subject to be discussed is larger than the annexation of New Guinea, or the control of the islands of the South Pacific. The Australian statesmen have evidently perceived that if Australia is to have dependencies of her own she must organise a general govern- ment, and Mr. Service in his circular lays it down that the Convention is " to discuss the basis on which a Federal Government could be constituted." This is an immense expansion of the original idea, and points to the formation, at no distant. date, of a grand "Australian Dominion," probably richer, if not larger, than the Canadian one. The movement will have the hearty sympathy of Englishmen at home, who are delighted to see the Colonies first develope into States, and then group themselves into strong and growing Powers. We are always delighted to depreciate ourselves, and certainly in Ireland and South Africa we have causes enough for humiliation, but the spontaneous action of bodies of Englishmen is often strangely successful. There will be a Federal Australian State yet, counting among the considerable Powers of the world, with a free constitution which Englishmen at home will carefully omit from their studies. We wonder how many educated men among us know the rights of a Canadian "Province" against the Canadian " Dominion."
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