Owing to the delay of the steamer by which he had arranged to proceed, Sir George was not present at the opening of the Con ference and has not yet declared his views, for which not only we m New Zealand, but doubtless also a very much wider circle are looking with great interest. \Ve are sorry to learn that he is still very weak, having evtofcjwUy not fully recovered from his recent illness. Captain Pnussell has how ever spoken, and spoken well on New Zealand's behalf. "Fie has evidently a just appreciation of the, great advan tages which must result from the federation of Australia, and that it should bo such a federation " as will attract by its centripetal force all remote parts m time to come." With the prescience of a true statesman he foresees that "m time to come the islands of the South Seas will become powers themselves," and that if Aus tralia is the centre of power they will of necessity be drawn to her, instead of these loose " atoms flying off to the United States of America " —already a competitor for the trade of, and for influence m the South Seas—which he rightly says " will probably occur if Australian statesmen do not prevent it." He is right too, we think, as to the means of prevention, and that is by making the Federal Convention sufficiently elastic to enable all these atoms to come m and to be consolidated without the sacrifice of their interests and without interfering with their working out their own individual destinies. Among the lions m the path of the builders-tip of the Australian Dominion are the questions of the nature of the Execu tive Government, and the constitution and powers of the Federal Legislature, and those of Federal Defence and the Federal Tariff. The last perhaps is the most knotty point of all, but its solu tion has already, we think, been correctly indicated by Sir T. 