9. It is demonstrated that an acre of land will yield a better return from fruit than from any other crop.

10. Fruit-growing opens up a practically inexhaustible field of employment for women.

11. Parents who desire their sons to embark in fruit-growing should see that they are properly trained before placing them on the land. Let them begin in a small way, half an acre at first, and gradually extend their operations as success crowns their efforts.

12. Railway charges need careful revision, and the system of preferential rates works unjustly. Fruit-growing will be even more profitable than at present when railway rates are levelled down.

13. The horticulturist of the future must aim at developing and supplying local markets. Residents in country districts pay higher for fruit than town inhabitants. It is for the benefit of the producer to aim, by better methods of distribution, to get closer to the consumer.

14. The question of market tolls and charges needs careful attention, and it is to be hoped that the Market Tolls Commission will be enabled to propound some practicable plan to remedy the injustices which at present prevail, particularly in Covent Garden Market. The excessive rents also charged to salesmen at this and other markets are indirectly borne by the producer and consumer. This fact supports the contention contained in the latter portion of the preceding paragraph.

15. Special care is needed by intending fruit-growers in selecting land for their operations; the particular varieties suitable for the district must be ascertained before stocking the orchard.

16. Conducted with intelligence and energy, fruit-growing, while not so profitable as some enthusiasts have stated at recent conferences, &c., will pay well. There are many difficulties to be overcome, and to be successful a man must be trained for it, as he would for any other money-making occupation. With such training, a moderate capital, and hard work, success, if not certain, is at any rate highly probable. If under such circumstances a man fail, let him look into himself to trace the reason of his non-success, and, having found it, commence anew to seek the prize.

FRANK A. MORGAN.

SELECTING COLONIAL GOVERNORS.

IN these days, when the atmosphere is charged with what is popularly known as Imperial Federation, some surprise and even vexation has been excited by the untoward incident of the 'indignation' expressed in Queensland at the nomination of a well-known official to be the new governor. But it is obvious, to those who know, that this surprise, this vexation, this indignation, nay, this whole incident, is regrettably due to ignorance of varied kinds. Knowledge may or may not be power; ignorance certainly is weakness. It is therefore for those who have knowledge to do all they can to dispel ignorance; and in the criticisms of this Queensland incident, ignorance of actual facts and true principles is sadly apparent, both in the colony and at home. It may be well briefly to remind ourselves of the history of this case, as it is, in its degree, a test case on one of the most important of our colonial relations.

Soon after the sad and sudden death of Sir Anthony Musgrave, Governor of Queensland, the Secretary of State was asked by the Agent-General for Queensland, whether he would confidentially inform the Queensland Ministry of the name of the proposed new governor before any definite decision was arrived at. To this request the Secretary of State replied, on the 19th of October, in an admirable despatch, pointing out the impracticability of such a course, especially on the plea of the consequent division of responsibility between the Home and the Colonial Governments. No doubt the gist of this despatch was cabled to Queensland. On the 8th of November the nomination of Sir Henry Blake to the governorship of Queensland was publicly announced, and on that day the Secretary of State received a cablegram from Queensland, stating that the news of Sir H. Blake's appointment had been received with general indignation and astonishment . . . his career should not have marked him out as fit for governing a colony possessing responsible government.' It is to be noted that this news, in its main terms, reached England through Reuter's agency the same day. The reply of the Secretary of State was his desire to be informed through the accepted channel, namely through the acting governor, of Ministers' reasons for objecting to the nomination. At this stage, South Australia also applied, in terms similar to those of the application of Queensland, as to the

submission to the Colonial Government of the name of anyone to be nominated as governor, before the nomination was finally ratified. A reply was sent precisely similar to that previously given to Queensland.

Then followed the telegraphic reply of the Queensland Ministers, stating a long series of reasons, some of them alluding to personal disqualifications of the newly nominated governor, and others to the general principles that should prevail in such selections. Ignorance was exhibited of Sir H. Blake's successful career as governor of two colonies in succession, but reasonable exception was taken to the appointment of one who had not yet governed a first-class colony, or occupied any position in the central government of the empire. The whole matter has, of course, been brought before Parliament, but up to the time of writing, merely with the object of eliciting information, and not with the view of discussing the principles involved in the nomination of governors to the self-governing colonies. The time has therefore arrived when the home-keeping public should be placed in possession of the facts and theories on which these principles are based.

The importance of this incident has been gravely exaggerated. We see it constantly asserted, as if on ultimate authority, that the governor is the only remaining link binding our self-governing colonies to the empire. Were this so, we might well despair of our empire. Those who assert this forget that this so-called link is but the outward and visible sign of that many-stranded cable of influences which binds the empire to the colonies, quite as much as it binds the colonies to the empire. It is merely the conventional, the outward and visible sign of the influences which exercise indisputable force, even though they do lie beneath the surface.

Plain questions oftentimes yield the plainest statement of a complex case. If a Queenslander asks how is it that Queensland can borrow money at three per cent.; if a New Zealander asks how is it France has not annexed the Akaroa peninsula; if a Canadian asks how is it the United States have not taken over all New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and their fisheries; if an Afrikander asks how is it that German conscription is not imposed on the farmer and the merchant of the Cape Colony-the reply is, because these several countries are part and parcel of the British Empire. Why are they part and parcel? Simply because they choose to be; because they know it to be for their own advantage. The financial credit, the commercial security, the territorial integrity, and the political freedom of each of these countries depend on the fact that they remain members one of another, remain part and parcel of this British Empire. These are among the material strands in the cable, but there are other strands, such as blood, tradition, religion, language, sentiment, enterprise, and commerical instinct, all powerful and all,

in their very nature, enduring bonds of union. The symbol of union in the mother country, the symbol of union all the empire over, is the Crown; and the Governor is the representative, the alter ego of the Crown. But it is not commonly recognised that he is only the 'alter ego' of the Crown in those duties and those functions entrusted to him by the terms of his commission, and that these depend on the character of the particular community over which he presides.

If we look to history we shall see that chance and design have sent a great variety of men to be governors over our various colonies and dependencies. Especially on first occupation, naval and military men have not unnaturally taken charge; and in more peaceable times civilians have acquired fame in administration. Gradually our colonies have taken to themselves new forms and new constitutions, and wherever climate has permitted of white labour there the seeds of self-government have taken root and borne good fruit. In each case, in temperate climates, as soon as the number of the settlers attained to a sufficiency, a parliamentary system of administration was set up and 'responsible' government instituted.

At this day we have nine such administrations—practically including all our temperate' colonies:-the great Canadian Dominion, Newfoundland, the Cape Colony, South Australia, Victoria, Tasmania, New South Wales, Queensland, and New Zealand. Natal awaits the settlement of her paramount native question before she can enter this category. Western Australia awaits a larger population. But in our great tropical colonies-our great trading settlements of Hong Kong and the Straits, or our great planting settlements, Ceylon, Mauritius, Jamaica, and British Guiana-where there is necessarily labour of African or Asiatic stock, the government is, in its degree, a paternal despotism.

I have a vivid personal experience of the inner workings of these various forms of colonial administration, and I venture to assert that the qualities required in a governor differ categorically in accordance with the class of colony or dependency to which he is destined. In every one of them it is necessary, indeed, to follow the advice given by Lord Carnarvon in his recent valuable letter to the Times: 'the governors should be English gentlemen in the fullest sense of the term.' But their special qualifications, above this fundamental necessity, vary with the type of colony they will have to preside

over.

In the tropical colony the capital—that is, the mainspring of its industrial and commercial life-is often owned by residents in the mother country; the bulk of the inhabitants are of the more helpless Asiatic or African stock; and the control of the mother country is consequently of a very direct character, even though many local affairs, as in Barbados, British Guiana, and most of the larger crown colonies, are properly left to the management of local representative institutions.

But in the temperate colonies, where the whole population is practically of European stock, and where industry and commerce rest on a self-contained basis, the Imperial Parliament has wisely delegated to the residents in so distant a spot free responsibility for the administration of their affairs.

It is necessary to repeat these truisms in some detail, because they seem to be by no means evident to many of those who have written or spoken on this Queensland incident. On the one hand we have officials and ex-officials claiming that all colonial governorships are the proper prizes of a particular service; and on the other we have political aspirants claiming the larger governorships as the proper prizes of statesmen of the mother country.

The struggle indicates the influence of the spirit which leads men to believe in competitive examinations, for the same practical fallacy underlies both. In neither case do the advocates stop to consider the type of man required for the particular work for which selection is being made. As Lord Dunraven truly and aptly said in the House of Lords, we have to decide whether any given candidate is suitable, as well as whether he is acceptable to the colonists. The simplest principle of procedure is first of all to determine what are the functions a particular governor will have to perform, and then to decide, in accordance with them, on the choice.

It is well to note that this is, after all, the general practice at present prevailing, as may be seen if we tabulate the antecedents of the governors of our larger colonies.

It will thus be seen that in the larger colonies, enjoying responsible government, the governors selected from the Colonial Service are few and far between. And yet it is acknowledged, by those who know, that perhaps the best governors these provinces of the empire have ever had are those now reigning in the great Canadian Dominion, in New South Wales, in Victoria, in New Zealand, not one of whom was