The forms Pan-Angle governments take are now two. One is the simple unitary form in which the central government is supreme within the sanction of the will of the voters expressed at the polls, any other government being a subordinate, i.e. a municipal government. The other form is not unitary, and the central government is supreme in the exercise of certain authority only, other governments being in all else supreme and autonomous partners.

The states of America, for example, and those of Australia are unitary in government. Of the seven Pan-Angle nations, three, Newfoundland, New Zealand, and the British Isles, are unitary, the central government in each being supreme over every part and in every respect.

Of the non-unitary governments there are four: the United States, Canada, Australia, and South Africa. By an accident of time and place America was the first to grapple with the problems which called for such a government. Thirteen states independent of each other and of any outside power found themselves in danger from inter-state contentions and external aggressions. Building for their very lives, they devised a form of government which has been called federal. In it each state kept most of its sovereign powers, but delegated certain others of them to a central legislature. The federation of the six Australian states followed much the same lines. In Canada and South Africa the states (in both cases called provinces) have retained less of their local autonomy. {194} The central government in the former may with some legislative difficulty and delay assume any power it desires, while in the latter unrestricted power has been lodged from the beginning in the central government. In neither of these two nations, however, has the central government assumed the exercise of its full possible power. In both it co-exists at present with the provincial governments after a federal manner, obtaining thus the advantages of federation.

For comparatively restricted areas within which problems and opinions are tolerably uniform, a unitary government satisfies Pan-Angles. States and provinces are such areas. Newfoundland and New Zealand are at present such areas. In Newfoundland the population is very sparse and the local variations are slight. It will be many years probably before there arises a need and a desire for devolution[194-1] of power from the present legislature. In New Zealand conditions are not so uniform, and although a unitary government seems satisfactory to-day, the time may readily be imagined when a denser population and conflicting interests of different sections of the country may make feasible local legislatures, each, for its allotted tasks, supreme. The only attempt so far towards that end originated outside of New Zealand and was abandoned before being put into practice.[194-2]

{195}

The unitary method of government has never proved itself able successfully to integrate areas divided from each other by distance or interests. It failed to hold together the first Britannic growth; it has been unable to bring into unity the second Britannic growth; it is acknowledged to be inadequate for such a task. Its weaknesses are evident in the British Isles. The British Isles, although no larger than many states and provinces, is composed of several sections divided by history, prejudice, and interest. These are now united into one government, in which one central legislature is supreme. Questions which may affect some one section alone are decided by the representatives of the country at large who are possibly both uninterested and uninformed. Scottish education, Welsh Church, and Irish land bills are dependent on the will of the whole British Isles,[195-1] and a multitude of strictly local affairs must wait for the attention of Parliament, since no other body has power to deal with them.

The results of this condition are two: first, a congestion of business in Parliament incompatible {196} with efficient and intelligent action; and, second, the violation of the principles of self-government producing discord between the several sections of the country. No one questions that Parliament to-day labours under the terrible disadvantage of having more to do than it possibly can accomplish. Needed and uncontended legislation is delayed for years, and such bills as are passed receive often inadequate consideration.[196-1] Though unity has up to now been preserved, the lack of local self-government has produced discords always more or less active. At times these have threatened to break out into violent disruption.

To overcome these weaknesses—to relieve the burdens of Parliament and to check the tendency to separation—many thinkers and patriots in the British Isles are convinced that some devolution of power to local legislatures cannot be long delayed.[196-2] There is talk of Irish, Scottish, and Welsh home rule. The present control of British Isles affairs by the Irish members of the House of Commons is teaching the desirability of home rule for England. Some would re-form the country into still smaller governmental sections. In the operation of any such plan a central Parliament is to be in control of certain nation-wide interests, among which would be foreign affairs and the army and navy.

{197}

"Now, what the Federalist is anxious to set up in the United Kingdom is an arrangement upon the Canadian model, in which there will be a supreme and sovereign Parliament, as at present, for the United Kingdom, and under it a certain number of subordinate parliaments, to attend to local and domestic legislation and administration. . . . No Federalist has ever suggested that Ireland should be turned into a Canada, although this accusation has occasionally been made against him by persons who have read his proposals carelessly, and have, accordingly, misunderstood their nature."[197-1]