COLONIAL CONFEDERATION.

Auckland Star, Volume II, Issue 477, 21 July 1871, Page 2

COLONIAL CONFEDERATION.

An article on " Confederation of tho Empire,'' signed " J. V.," occupying a column aud a-hal'f of closely printed type, appeared in the Londou Standard, of May 15. Its authorship will be readily recognised in New Zealand. The writer, in tho most exhaustive uinnnor discusses the project of a Federal Union between -j-reat Britain and the colonies. The. Standard remarks, in this connection, editorially.— "Every other great nation is employed in cementing and consolidating tho connection between its members. Why should Great Britain be the one exception? Is it the deliberate opinion of the British people that they are better for being .« disestablished" as a Great Powej, that their magnificent dominion ought to bo resolved into its constituent elements ? Surely the time is como when Groat Britain should decide what she is to be-^an insular kingdom, sunk necessarily into a thirdrate power, or the central member of a ereat Anglo-Saxon Oonfederaiiou. 'Ihe choice will not be always hers. That which can be done

easily and happily to-day will be impossible to-morrow. All the wild and foolish talk which we hear from Ministers in Parliament —all those loose suggestions about separation —may bear fruit earlier than any of us expect. Is it then 'decided that the British dominion is to be broken up as soon as it pleases any one of our outlyiug possessions to declare itsindependence ? Of course, if one colony goes, other colonies will follow. There is a contagion in disloyalty, as in loyalty, and the day may come when the colonists will beh'eve what is so frequently preached to them." The Standard, in the sama tenor, speaks very stsongly in favor of the ideas advattaed by " J. V." A