Franklin said truly that--
"those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not
generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into
execution new projects."
But surely on a question of such vital moment to the Empire as the
revision of the constitution of the United Kingdom, the bases, if not
the details, of the contemplated change are deserving of prolonged
consideration and even of some public and ordered discussion. The
British North America Act, 1867, by which the relation of the Dominion
of Canada to its provinces is regulated, was the result, not only of
years of preliminary debate in the provincial Legislatures and
elsewhere, but of a formal conference at Quebec in 1864, followed by the
appointment of delegates to confer with the Imperial Government on the
matter. In Australia the proposal for union, agitated at intervals since
1846, was canvassed in every detail at inter-colonial Conferences or
Conventions in 1883, in 1891, and in 1897-8, as well as in the several
colonial Legislatures, before it was embodied in the Australia
Constitution Act, 1900.
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