Systems of government do not last for
ever; they decay and have to be replaced. The most perfect of machines
wears itself out, and another has to be substituted.
'Not merely that, but the new one has to be of a different design,
adapted to a fresh, most likely a severer, set of circumstances. A man
who refused to utilise the wisdom and resources of his age in machinery,
would be regarded as a madman. It is the same in the economy of the human
family; to dread wise and ordered change is to court trouble.'
Thus, Sir George reasoned that we had arrived at an epoch of federation,
the application of which would be something new, only the conditions
needing it had not arisen before. The ancients had not discovered the art
of securing political representation, or, what the moderns called the
principle of federation. It was not necessary for the ancients, as it had
become for the moderns. Simply, the conditions of the world had changed,
and that on two planes.
In the past, there had been the continual discovery and peopling of new
countries. No more remained to be discovered; no corner of the globe
remained unknown to us. We knew what each nation was engaged in doing,
and we were able to estimate, with some measure of assurance, what it
would continue doing.
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