Excerpt from Federal Constitutions Within the Empire: Colonial Institute, Friday, May 4th, 1900 I have written this paper with a somewhat selfish object. My purpose was to try to get plainly before my own eyes, quite as much as before the eyes of those who are so good as to come here today, certain phenomena pertaining to those derivative constitutions of our Empire which have been created by the Crown and by Parliament. The phenomena to which I refer arise out of and vary with certain relation ships to the parent Government. These particular relationships are nowhere expressed in writing; but they none the less form part of the body of custom of the Imperial Constitution, and, like the rest of that body of custom, they are constantly, though slowly and silently, undergoing a process of modification and development. Just for this reason they are elusive and difficult to express. In this respect they resemble other principles of our unwritten and progressive Constitution, the statement of which, adequate and accurate for the generation in which it was made, has become untrue for the next. Such statements do not the less represent reality, because the reality is constantly changing. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.