ABSTRACT
They secured the co-operation, though not the definite adhesion, of Gladstone; and Disraeli, though he had little sympathy with Wakefield or with 'colonial reform', was tempted by their idea of a colonial amendment to the Address in Reply. It might be made to cover the objects he had more particularly in view-the removal of all duties on colonial produce and the admission of colonial representatives to Parliament. It was only in deference to the objections of Lord Stanley that he laid the idea aside.2 Surely the hour of the Colonial Reformers had struck at last. 'A deep impression,' said 'Ihe 'Iimes, 'pervades all classes of politicians that the ground has shifted under us and that the Mother Country must adapt her policy to the new state of thingsthe new state being, in fact, a spontaneous development of the colonies themselves.'3
