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AUSTRALIA AND THE EMPIRE

merely, always regarding his particular Colony as his real "home." The recent Colonial Exhibition at South Kensington brought a good number of such visitors to England. Still more important from a political point of view was the subsequent assembling of the Colonial Conference under Sir Henry Holland, now Lord Knutsford. Then we had in London a number of prominent Colonial public men, each of whom regarded his individual colony as his true sphere of public labour, and none of whom desired to be merged in the ordinary ruck of the purely British population. From an Imperial point of view, the opinions that these men brought to Downing Street, and still more those that they carried back from that arcanum, must be regarded as of the very first importance. Still, after mature consideration, I have chosen rather to take my sketch of the "Australian in England" from a period sufficiently remote to give the effect of perspective.

Over a quarter of a century ago a pair of very remarkable Australian colonists visited England in the capacity of Emigration Commissioners. Had they been ordinary individuals they would doubtless have been styled Emigration agents, but they were prominent politicians; and prominent politicians,