are "constitutional" or representative in our polity, so that something
else is still wanted. In short, the unity of the empire requires two
things. First, that all its force be under one executive, and, next,
that the colonies be proportionately represented in that executive. The
Cabinet seems to me the adaptable body we can operate upon to this end.
That body would then be actually, as well as legally, the empire's
executive. Nothing should--nothing need--prevent the attainment of this
grand end. The tariff bugbear concerns only commerce, and need not
arrest nor even interfere with the empire's political unity. All other
matters of the common interest can be leisurely settled by mutual
consent, as the empire, in its united state, sails along the great ocean
of the future. The mother will then, in emergency, have the sure call of
her children; while every colony, even to the very smallest, will know
that in case of need the whole empire is at its back. When the rest of
the world knows that fact, it will thenceforth probably not trouble our
empire either about international rearrangements or anything else.


EARLY PORT PHILLIP.

"Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And the days o' lang syne."
--Burns.

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder."
--Haynes Bayly.

Entering Port Phillip on the morning of the 13th December, 1840, we were
wafted quickly up to the anchorage of Hobson's Bay on the wings of a
strong southerly breeze, whose cool, and even cold, temperature was to