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“But there are many difficulties to be overcome—so many, that we doubt these abstract theories to be at present within the sphere of practical application. There is such a mass of opposition to the idea of Federalism. And, as for the idea of Free-trade, we can only speculate on the existence of a national spirit here. The thinking public is quite content with its State schools for the lower class, and cares little or nothing about State schools and a higher education for the upper class. They are much more interested in the religious questions of the day—the Catholic attitude, the conflict between Mr. Strong and his Presbytery on the subject of Religious Liberalism or Latitudinarianism, as you may please to call it, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.”—All this is so, let us admit it at once, but it does not discourage us. We know, or think we know (which is, after all, almost the same thing), that these three questions—Free-trade, Federalism, Higher Education—are the three great, the three vital questions for Australia, for Melbourne. We know that, sooner or later, they will have to be properly considered and decided upon, and that, if Melbourne is to keep the place which she now holds as the leading city, intellectually and commercially, of Australia, they will have to be decided upon in that way which conforms with “the intelligible law of things,” with the Tendency of the Age, with the Time-Spirit. For this is the one invaluable and, in the end, irresistible ally of Progress—of Progress onward and upward.