IMPERIAL FEDERATION

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This Edition is intended for circulation only in India and the
British Colonies

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Macmillan's Colonial Library

IMPERIAL FEDERATION

THE PROBLEM OF NATIONAL UNITY

BY

GEORGE R. PARKIN, M.A.

WITH MAP

London

MACMILLAN AND CO.

AND NEW YORK

1892

No. 143

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'I tell you that when you study English history you study not the past of England only, but her future. It is the welfare of your country, it is your whole interest as citizens that is in question while you study history. How it is so I illustrate by putting before you this subject of the Expansion of England. I show you that there is a vast question ripening for decision, upon which almost the whole future of our country depends. In magnitude this question far surpasses all other questions which you can ever have to discuss in political life.'

PROFESSOR J. R. SEELEY.

OXFORD: HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY

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PREFACE

THIS book has been written at the request of many friends who think that a useful purpose will be served by putting the facts and arguments which it embodies into a connected form, where they will be easily accessible to the ordinary reader, and where either their fallacies may be exposed or their truth find a wider recognition. In most of the chief centres of the British world both at home and abroad I have found men of all classes, and not seldom large masses of men, who agreed on the whole with the line of thought which I here try to follow; agreed, too, with an intensity of belief and a warmth of enthusiasm which are, I think, rarely found except in connection with great and true causes. This concurrence of other minds has deepened the profound conviction which I have long felt that the completion of a closer and permanent political unity between the British communities scattered throughout the world should be a first aim of national statesmanship, and might {vi} become, if its advantages were clearly understood, a supreme object of popular desire.

It is essentially a subject for full and free discussion. Permanent national unity for British people can only be based on an agreement of opinion among at least the larger self-governing communities that the union is for the common good. That there should be an absolute unanimity of consenting opinion among the populations of the communities concerned we have no reason to hope. It has never occurred in any large national consolidation hitherto, and it is not likely to do so now. The continued unity of the Empire is a political question involving immense issues, and divergent opinions may be assumed from the start. Indeed, it becomes more evident from day to day, to those who watch carefully the current of events, that the end can only be gained—as great ends have ever been gained—after a severe struggle between contending forms of thought. The provincialism which has uniformly resisted large national organization; the pessimism which sees danger in every new form of political evolution; the repugnance to change in an old country with forms of government more or less fixed; the crudeness of political thought and want of national perspective in young communities; the ignorance which begets inertia: all these exist and must be combated. In this struggle the better cause, the strongest arguments, the deepest convictions, the most {vii} strenuous moulders of public opinion, will win. Mere circumstances will never shape themselves for the required solution. A policy of drift will never result in united strength. Growth may be an unconscious process—organization can only be the result of a conscious effort. No thinking man today would wish to see the American Republic resolved into its original sovereign states, Germany into its kingdoms, small principalities, and duchies; Canada into its distinct provinces; Italy into its cities. Yet none of these would now be what they are had their fortunes been left to the drift of circumstances alone. Their history proves that the ideals of the clearest minds, backed up by intense convictions and resolute effort, are essential to the attainment of the highest political organization. Circumstances or the course of events may thwart human effort or favour it, but they can never take its place as a complete substitute.

The further consolidation of the Empire depends in great measure upon the answer given to two questions. Is it for the advantage of the different communities that they should remain together? and, granting an affirmative answer to this, does the problem of further unification on a mutually satisfactory basis present difficulties which transcend the resources of British statesmanship?

These questions roughly indicate the line of enquiry which I wish to follow. Behind them lies an issue {viii} which British people throughout the world will soon be forced to recognize as infinitely surpassing in momentous significance any upon which their political thought and energy are now being spent. We may not unreasonably believe that the movements at present going on in the mother-land and the colonies are only supplying us with the political formulae required for grappling with the higher national problem.

It seems like sheer political blindness not to perceive that in different parts of the Empire forces are now actively at work which may at any moment precipitate a decision of this great question; movements in progress which, it seems safe to say, must of necessity lead up to a decision within a time measured at the very most by one or two decades.

Nations take long to grow, but there are periods when, as in the long delayed flowering of certain plants, or in the crystallization of chemical solutions, new forms are taken with extreme rapidity. There are the strongest reasons for believing that the British nation has such a period immediately before it. The necessity for the creation of a body of sound public opinion upon the relations to each other of the various parts of the Empire is therefore urgent. In stating the case for British Unity I have constantly found myself merely linking together arguments already used by thinkers in many parts of the Empire. {ix} Any apology on my part for thus making use of other men's thoughts, is unnecessary. Earnest believers in a great cause only wish that the grounds of their belief should be made known as widely as possible.

No one can be more conscious than myself of the incompleteness of the statement which I have tried to make. But even a partial study of a great subject may serve a useful purpose. If what is here said furnish to the advocates of National Unity some texts upon which they may enlarge and improve, if it provoke that honest criticism which leads to a firmer grasp of truth, I shall be more than satisfied.

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. PAGE INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER II FEDERATION 31 CHAPTER. III DEFENCE 59 CHAPTER IV. THE UNITED KINGDOM 103 CHAPTER V. CANADA 115 CHAPTER VI. FRENCH CANADA 153 CHAPTER VII. MR. GOLDWIN SMITH 163 CHAPTER VIII. AUSTRALIA. TASMANIA. NEW ZEALAND. .192 {xii} CHAPTER IX. PAGE SOUTH AFRICA. THE WEST INDIES 232 CHAPTER X. INDIA. 243 CHAPTER XI. AN AMERICAN VIEW 253 CHAPTER XII. FINANCE 271 CHAPTER XIII. TRADE AND FISCAL POLICY 278 CHAPTER XIV. PLANS. CONCLUSION 296 MAP Commercial and Strategic Chart of the British Empire, on Mercator's Projection ..End of book.

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THE PROBLEM OF NATIONAL UNITY

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

THE glory of the British political system is often said to lie in the fact that it is a growth; that it has adapted itself, and is capable of continuous adaptation, to the necessities of national development. The fact is proved and the boast is justified by British history, but behind them, no doubt, is a race characteristic. A special capacity for political organization may, without race vanity, be fairly claimed for Anglo-Saxon people.

The tests which have already been, or are now being, applied to this organizing capacity are sufficiently striking and varied. In the British Islands themselves a gradual and steady process of evolution, extending over hundreds of years, has led up from the free but weak and disjointed government of the Heptarchy period to the equally free but strong and consolidated government of the United Kingdom. In the United States, within little more than a hundred {2} years, we have seen one great branch of the race weld into organic unity a number of loosely aggregated provinces under a system which now extends over half the area of a great continent. Twenty-five years ago the process was repeated on the other half of the American continent. In the face of difficulties, by many believed to be insuperable, Canada, stretching from ocean to ocean a distance of nearly 4000 miles, has become a political unit, and already exhibits a cohesion which small European States have often only gained after long periods of internal and external conflict.

On another continent Australians, dealing with provinces larger in area than European empires, are grappling courageously with the problem of political combination, and the universal confidence felt in the ultimate success of their efforts shows what reliance is put upon the strength and efficiency of the race instinct. In South Africa and the West Indies the considerable intermixture of coloured races complicates the question, but here too the forces which make for unity are more or less actively at work.

Speaking generally we may say that in the long course of Anglo-Saxon history whenever the need of combination has arisen the political expedient has been devised to match the political necessity. This capacity for adequate organization has been the keynote of distinction between the democracy of our race and all the democracies by which it has been preceded.

There is reason to think that this organizing quality {3} is one which has given effectiveness to all others. The steadiness of the advance which the race has made in social and industrial directions has depended upon the security given by political organization at once comprehensive, flexible, and strong. No other branch of the human family has ever been so free to apply itself to the higher problems of civilization.

All the conditions of the world at the present time point to the conclusion that further progress must be safe-guarded in the same way. On the one hand, we see an extraordinary organization of military power and a widening of military combination among European nations to which the past furnishes no parallel, and which suggest hitherto unheard-of possibilities of conflict or aggression. On the other hand, the vast extension of industrial and commercial interests among British people, without any parallel in the previous history of the world, seems to demand a corresponding widening of the political combination which is required to give them security.

Meanwhile the amazing spread of the race has become the main fact of modern history—the one which assuredly will have the most decisive influence on the future of mankind. Only within the last hundred years, one might almost say within a still narrower limit of time, has this been fully realized. The tentative efforts of Spaniards, Portuguese, Dutch, and French to dominate the new continents opened up by the discoveries at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries did not {4} receive a decisive check till towards the end of the eighteenth. Then the new tide fairly began to flow. The flux of civilized population, by which new and great centres of human activity are created, has since that time been so overwhelmingly Anglo-Saxon that nearly all minor currents are absorbed or assimilated by it. Teuton, Latin, Scandinavian, with one or two limited but well-defined exceptions, lose their identity and tend to disappear in the dominant mass of British population which has flowed, and continues in scarcely abated volume to flow, steadily away from the mother islands to occupy those temperate regions which are manifestly destined to become in an increasing degree centres of the world's force.

With abundant space on which to expand, increase has been rapid, and it would seem that in mere mass of numbers English-speaking people are destined at no distant date to surpass any other branch of the human stock.

That an expansion so vast should bring in its train a new set of political problems, with a range wider than any that had gone before, is only natural. That new hopes should be conceived from this wonderful change in the balance of the world's forces; that new plans should be devised to utilize it, as other expansions have been utilized, for the good of our race and of mankind, is equally natural.

It is almost needless to point out that the conditions incidental to this expansion were at first misunderstood. The ignorance of public opinion as to the true {5} relations between mother-land and colonies, seconded by the blindness and obstinacy of politicians waging a bitter party fight, produced in 1776 the great schism of the Anglo-Saxon race. Chatham, Burke, and many of the clearest minds of England, believed that the American Revolution was unnecessary—in America itself there was a large, and for a long time a preponderant party, which held that in constitutional change a way of escape could be found from Revolution. The worse counsels prevailed, and Revolution took the place of Reform and Readjustment. It is, no doubt, idle to speculate upon the results which might have followed from a different line of action; if the statesmen of that day had proved equal to the task of dealing with the political problem with which they were confronted. The idea that the separation of the United States from Great Britain was a pure gain to either country or to the world may, however, be distinctly challenged.

It may easily be imagined that the earlier ripening of public opinion in England upon the question of slavery, and the earlier solution found for it on peaceful lines, might have helped to solve the problem at an earlier stage in America as well, and thus prevented the frightful catastrophe of the War of Secession in 1865. The close and intimate political reaction upon each other of the two greatest Anglo-Saxon communities, the one with its higher standard of statesmanship and public morality, the other with its more active liberalizing tendencies, might have been in the highest {6} degree healthful for both. United with all others of their own race and language, British people might have been able, in self-sufficing strength, to withdraw almost a hundred years earlier than could otherwise be possible from the entanglements of European politics, and to be free to devote all their energies to the maintenance of peace, and the development of industry, commerce, and civilization. Qualifications to these views will, of course, present themselves to every mind, and it is not necessary to press them too far or to quarrel with the course of history. Much more important is it to observe its results and learn the lessons which it teaches.

We now see that the bifurcation of Anglo-Saxon national life which took place in 1776 was of all other events in modern history the one most pregnant with great consequences. The war of the Revolution led primarily to the foundation of the Republic of the United States. Its significance, however, is not exhausted by this fact, great though it is. The reflex action upon the thought and policy of Britain involved consequences as important and far-reaching. Revolution for once in our development had taken the place of Evolution, but in the end enabled the latter to resume its steady course. The revolt of the American colonies led to the closer study of the principles which must control national expansion. Britain strove, and not in vain, to acquire the art of bringing colonies into friendly relation with the national system. The nation-building energy of her people remained unimpaired, {7} and though one group of colonies had been lost, others, extending over areas far more extensive, were soon gained. Under new principles of government these were acquired, not to be lost, but retained as they have been up to the present time. Is that retention to be permanent? Is it desirable? Can the colonies be brought, and ought they to be brought, not merely into friendly relations, but into organic harmony with the national system? Has our capacity for political organization reached its utmost limit? For British people this is the question of questions. In the whole range of possible political variation in the future there is no issue of such far-reaching significance, not merely for our own people but for the world at large, as the question whether the British Empire shall remain a political unit for all national purposes, or, yielding to disintegrating forces, shall allow the stream of the national life to be parted into many separate channels.

Twenty-five years ago it seemed as if English people, and it certainly was true that the majority of English statesmen, had made up their minds definitely as to the only possible and desirable solution to this great national problem. The old American colonies had gone, and had remained none the less good customers of the mother-country for having become independent. Very soon, it was sincerely believed, the whole world would be converted to Free Trade, and with universal free trade and the universal peace which was to follow, nothing was to be gained from retaining the colonies, {8} while the colonies themselves were expected to look eagerly forward to complete political emancipation as the goal of their development. A few brilliant writers in the press, a few eloquent speakers on the platform, gave much vogue to these views. The correspondence of prominent public men which has since come to light, the recollections of men still living, furnish convincing proof that this opinion was widely accepted in official circles. A governor, leaving to take charge of an Australian colony, was told even from the Colonial Office that he would probably be the last representative of the Crown sent out from Britain. This tendency of official thought found its culmination when, in 1866, a great journal frankly warned Canada, the greatest of all the colonies, that it was time to prepare for the separation from the mother-land that must needs come. The shock which this outspoken declaration gave to Canadian sentiment, built up as it had been on a century of loyalty to the idea of a United Empire, was very great. That statesman and journalist alike had misconceived the temper of the British as well as of the colonial mind was soon made manifest. This was shown by the almost universal applause which greeted the passionately indignant protest of Tennyson, when, in the final dedication to the Queen of his Idylls, he wrote:—

    'And that true North[1], whereof we lately heard
    A strain to shame us—keep you to yourselves: {9}
    So loyal is too costly! friends, your love
    Is but a burden: break the bonds and go!
    Is this the tone of Empire! Here the faith
    That made us rulers! This indeed her voice
    And meaning, whom the roar of Hougoumont
    Left mightiest of all nations under heaven!
    What shock has fooled her since that she should speak
    So feebly?'

At once it became clear that here the real heart of Britain spoke—that poet rather than politician grasped with greater accuracy the true drift of British thought.

It is not too much to say that from that day to this the policy of separation, as the true theoretical outcome of {10} national evolution, has been slowly but steadily dying. John Bright held the theory in England almost up to the end of his great career. Goldwin Smith advocates it in Canada still. Of their views I shall have more to say later. But among conspicuous names theirs have stood practically alone. Politicians in Britain do not wish, and if they wished, would scarcely dare, to advocate it on public platforms. Separation may come under the compulsion of necessity, from the incapacity of statesmen to work out an effective plan of union, or as the result of national apathy and ignorance—not because it is desired, or from any theoretical belief in its advantage to the people concerned.

If we lay aside, however, the question of national feeling, or national interest, and look upon the matter as simply one of constitutional growth and change, it is little wonder that the statesmen of that earlier period took the view they did.

I have in my possession a document which seems to me of much historical interest in this connection as furnishing concrete evidence of the direction of political thought at the period to which I have referred. It is the printed draft of a Bill prepared with great care more than twenty-five years ago by Lord Thring, whose long service as Parliamentary counsel to successive Cabinets has given him an experience in the practical forms of English legislation quite unrivalled. The Bill was intended to be a logical sequel to those measures of Imperial legislation by which responsible government was {11} granted to the Canadian and Australian colonies. The new constitutions had then been in operation for some time in several of the great colonies, and already no slight friction had occurred in the endeavour to adjust Imperial and Colonial rights and responsibilities upon a clear and well-understood basis. Moreover, the continued formation of new colonies and the desire of certain Crown colonies to attain to responsible government suggested a fundamental treatment of the whole question of colonial relations. The Bill therefore embodies an attempt to put upon a just basis the relations between Britain and her colonies at each period of their growth, and to state clearly their mutual obligations and mutual duties.

It naturally provides in the first place for the government of settlements in their earlier stages of growth under the absolute jurisdiction of the Crown.

In the next place, the transition of such a Crown settlement into the rank and status of a colony with responsible government is not left to be decided by agitation within the colonies or by irregular pressure in other directions, such as lately took place in the case of Western Australia; but it is made to depend on a definite increase of European population and other conditions equally applicable to all colonies alike. With the grant of responsible government, however, comes a clear division between imperial and local powers, and an equally definite distribution of burdens; the guarantee to the colony of protection from foreign aggression being contingent upon the contribution by {12} the colony of the revenue or money required for defence in fair proportion to its wealth and population.

Lastly, 'as the natural termination of a connection in itself of a temporary character' (to use the words of the preface to the Bill), provision is made for the formal separation of a colony and its erection into an independent state when its people feel equal to under-taking the full range of national responsibility. Direct provision is made for independence only at the colony's own request, but it is suggested that separation might be brought about by coercive proclamation on the part of the mother-country in case the colony fails to perform the national duties which it accepted with responsible government.

The interest of this proposed legislation seems to me to lie in the proof which it furnishes that the grant of responsible government was by no means regarded as giving finality to national relations, but only as marking a stage in colonial development. The view thus taken by Lord Thring in England was the view taken by Joseph Howe in Canada, to whose opinions I shall have occasion hereafter to refer.

The merit of the Bill lay in the fact that it placed upon a defined and easily understood footing the relations of mother-land and colony so long as they remained together; and provided a constitutional way of escape from the connection when it had ceased to give satisfaction to either party. Its peculiarity, indicative of the opinions prevailing at the time, is that no notice is taken of the possibility of a colony rising {13} to a place of greatness and power inconsistent with a strictly subordinate colonial relation, and yet desiring to perpetuate its organic connection with the nation.

The constitution of the United States provides that new settlements, though thousands of miles from the centre of government, and as truly colonies as those of Britain, shall rise from the condition of territories into that of states, under which they enjoy the full national franchise, and assume a full share of national responsibility. In a like manner Lord Thring's Bill fairly faced the fact that for communities such as those which British people were forming, the colonial stage was temporary and transitional, and it provided, in a different sense, but in accord with existing conditions and beliefs, a fixed goal for colonial aspirations, and a fixed limit to the responsibilities of the mother-land.

The framer of this Bill is now, I have reason to think, among those who believe that a very different end of colonial development is both desirable and practicable. Such a reversal of opinion is the natural outcome of the extraordinary changes which have passed over the national life. The extension of commercial and industrial relations, the growth of common interests, the increased facility for communication, above all, the retention in the colonies, under their new systems of free government, of a strong national sentiment, and the absence of the anticipated desire to break the national connection, have thrown new light upon the whole question.

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In that new light it now seems that there is an argument well nigh unanswerable, which goes to prove that so far from being a matter of indifference, the separation from the Empire of anyone of our great groups of colonies would be an event pregnant with anxieties and possible disaster alike to the colonies and to the mother-land, and so far from being the natural line of political development, that separation would be as unnatural as it is unnecessary. It is this thought that has given birth to the idea of national federation, to the conviction in many minds that the chief effort of our national statesmanship should be directed to securing the continued unity of the wide-spread British Empire, to resisting any tendency towards that disintegration which a generation ago was looked forward to with comparative unconcern. This is not the thought of mere theorists or enthusiasts. Statesmen and thinkers of the first rank both in the mother-land and the colonies, while reserving their judgment as to the lines on which complete unity can be gained, have strongly affirmed their belief that it is the true goal for our national aspirations, that the question is one of supreme concern for the whole Empire, and that the problem must soon be grappled with in practical politics.

Not the creation, but the preservation of national unity, is the task which thus confronts British people, which they must accept or refuse. Unity already exists: it is the necessary starting-point of every discussion. It will prove, if need be, an incalculable assistance {15} towards the attainment of the completer unity at which we aim. But the existing unity is crude in form, one which in its very nature is temporary and transitional, one which ignores or violates political principles ingrained in the English mind as essential to any finality in political development, and which already results in gross inequalities in the conditions of citizenship throughout the Empire.

The logic by which this position is proved seems irresistible in its appeal to the mind of the ordinary British citizen. It is well to be clear on this point.

The essence of British political thought, the very foundation upon which our freedom, political stability, and singular collective energy as a nation have been built up, may be expressed in two words—Representative Government. The loyalty of the subject and the faithfulness of the ruler spring alike from this. The willingness to bear public burdens, the deep interest in public affairs, the close study and careful application of political principles which distinguish the people of our race from all others, and the advance of the whole body politic towards greater individual freedom combined with greater collective strength, are all direct outgrowths of Representative Government. Other races may work out other systems and attain greatness in doing so; we have committed ourselves to this, so far as dealing with our own people is concerned. From the local board which settles the poor-rate or school-tax for a parish, to the Cabinet which deals with the highest concerns of the Empire and the world, {16} this principle is the central element of strength, since it is the ground on which public confidence is based. A British subject who has no voice in influencing the government of the nation throughout the whole range of its operation has not reached that condition to which the whole spirit of our political philosophy points as the state of full citizenship. We are on absolutely safe ground when we say that great English communities will not permanently consent to stop short of this citizenship, nor will they relegate to others, even to a majority of their own nationality, the uncontrolled direction of their most important interests.

With certain qualifications, introduced to mitigate the glaring anomaly of the situation, the great self-governing colonies of the Empire are in fact now compelled to allow many of their most important affairs to be managed by others. Canada, with a commercial navy which floats on every sea, holding already in this particular the fourth place among the nations of the world, has a voice in fixing international relations only by the courtesy of the mother-land, and not by the defined right of equal citizenship. Australia, occupying a continent, with vast and growing commercial interests, is in the same anomalous position. English-speaking, self-governing populations, amounting in the aggregate already to nearly a third of the population of the United Kingdom, and likely within little more than a generation to equal it, with enormous interests involved in nearly every movement of national affairs, {17} have no direct representative influence in shaping national policy or arranging international relations.

The almost perfect freedom they enjoy in the control of local affairs accentuates rather than mitigates the anomaly. By accustoming them to the exercise of political rights it makes them impatient of anything which falls short of the full dignity of national citizenship.

No one who understands the genius of Anglo-Saxon people can believe that this state of affairs will be permanent. No one who sympathizes with the spirit which has constantly urged forward British people on their career of political progress can wish it to be so. Great countries with an assured future cannot always remain colonies, as that term has hitherto been understood. The system which persists in making no other provision for them is on the point of passing away.

It is sometimes urged that freedom from national burdens should be enough to reconcile colonists to any lack of representation in national counsels; that if they have no sufficient share of Imperial Government they are at least rid of Imperial anxieties; that wise direction of affairs may, in any case, be looked for from the mother-land. But no immunity from public burdens, can compensate for the loss of a share in the higher life of the nation and the higher dignity of full citizenship: no honourable career can result from a readiness to shirk responsibility: a willingness to rely upon others to do our {18} work or protect our interests is not the spirit which has built up or will perpetuate the power of our race. Such argument may suit the infancy of colonies; applied to their adolescence it is degrading, since it implies a mean and contented dependence. If the greater British colonies are permanently content with their present political status they are unworthy of the source from which they sprang. It will not be so. The spirit of independence has developed, not degenerated, in the wider breathing space of new continents. A very little further growth, increasing the complication and aggravating the anomaly of the existing situation, will bring us to a stage where that spirit will no longer endure the restraints now put upon it by practical difficulties of political organization, and where those difficulties must be swept away by the gathering force of national instincts and necessities. About the direction of change there may be a question; about the certainty of change there can be none.

But the argument is equally strong when we reverse our attitude, and place ourselves in the position of the taxpaying citizens of the United Kingdom. There are probably few of these who are not at times filled with a glow of pride and enthusiasm when they think of the vast extent of those colonies, which, planted by British energy, held through years of conflict by British courage, and proudly inheriting British traditions, are rising to pre-eminence in every quarter of the globe.

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This pride and enthusiasm have very positive and practical issues. The citizen of the remotest colony knows that should an enemy wantonly attack his frontier—should port or city be threatened by a hostile force—almost within twenty-four hours, as soon as telegraph could summon or steam convey them, British sailors or British soldiers would be pouring thither, as ready to fight and die for that particular bit of soil as for the shores of England itself. But the sentiment which makes this possible is balanced and qualified by very different considerations. The citizen of the United Kingdom has often been compelled to regard the colonies as great dependencies which increased his responsibilities and multiplied his difficulties without returning to the mother-country, under their present organization, strength in men or resources, or even in exclusive commercial advantage. Every new colony or colonial interest was to him something new to defend, and augmented the burden of Empire.

Yearly the vast expense necessary to provide adequately for national responsibilities increased, and added itself to the weight of taxation incident to an advanced civilization and complex social system. While forced to bear the chief burden of the taxation required for national defence, the people of the British Islands could see that the mass of the colonists benefited by this protection already possessed, or were likely before long to possess a higher average of wealth and comfort than the mass of the people {20} who bestowed the benefit. Looking forward little more than a generation he could foresee a time when the colonists whose commerce was protected would equal in number the whole home population which gave the protection, when the volume of colonial commerce itself would surpass that of the mother-land.

It requires little argument to prove that the anomaly of leaving one part of a nation to bear a disproportionate share of the burdens of the whole is as inconsistent with Anglo-Saxon ideas of government as the exclusion of the colonies from a proportionate voice in the conduct of national affairs.

An effective method of illustrating this anomalous condition of the Empire and of British citizenship at the present time is to consider the immediate change which takes place in the political privileges and responsibilities of a man who shifts his residence from the mother-country to Canada, Australia, or any other great colony. He crosses the ocean, perhaps, to carry on in another part of the Empire the business of the the bank, or commercial house, or shipping firm with which he is connected here. Such of his interests as require national protection remain the same, and continue to enjoy security under the British flag. He continues to take precisely the same interest as before in the national welfare. But he loses at once the right to influence national policy by his vote, and at the same time he drops his old responsibilities of citizenship, since he no longer pays the same proportion {21} of the taxes which make the nation strong to protect him.

Take again a crucial case as applied to the working man. In Australia one finds nearly 100,000,000 of sheep. The shepherding and shearing of these sheep, the packing, carriage, and shipping of their wool, give employment to a large section of the industrial population. Nearly all this wool finds its market in England, where the manufacture of a portion of it gives employment to an immense population in centres such as the West Riding of Yorkshire and parts of Scotland. The safety of this wool in passing from the Australian centre of production to the British centre of manufacture is essential to the prosperity of the people in both. To this end Australian ports are made strong at Australian expense and British ports at British expense. So far all is fair and the distribution of the burden on industry is equal. But between the two countries lie 12,000 miles of sea to be guarded, and this is effectively done at enormous naval and military expense, the burden of which, however, is almost exclusively borne at the British end of the line. The proportion paid by the Australian workman is comparatively insignificant. Yet he is the one who earns the higher wages and feels the pressure of taxation less.

I have heard a working man in a large public meeting in Australia assert that the position viewed from this aspect was unfair, and he added that he personally was far better able to bear an equal share {22} of national burdens as a working man in Australia than he had ever been as a working man in Britain. He was certainly as competent to exercise the national franchise.

The illustration thus taken from a single colony and a single department of industry has, of course, a wide application. Whether viewed, then, from a purely British or a purely colonial standpoint there are unanswerable reasons, and they are equally unanswerable from either side, which point to an early modification of the national system.

Especially is it to be noted, however, that the circumstances which have developed this great problem have not arisen, like many other political problems, from injustice or mismanagement in the past, or from any causes tending to provoke mutual recrimination. Through the simple processes of growth and change, the conditions which satisfied the demands of national life in the past have become insufficient to satisfy its necessities for the future. Nothing could possibly be more helpful for the solution of the question than this fact, that men are able to approach it entirely free from party feuds and local animosities.

Why, it may be asked, have not the inconsistency and the temporary character of the existing national system been all along obvious to every one? Why does the public attention require to be directed to facts so manifest? Perhaps the best answer is to be found in the wonderful rapidity of the changes which have been going on, and the intense {23} absorption of British people, both at home and abroad, in the actual processes of national evolution, which left no time for studying their indirect results.

Within the last century, and mainly within the last half century, the United Kingdom has passed through the most strenuous period of industrial development known in the history of nations. The social system has been revolutionized by an extraordinary increment of wealth, an immense increase of population, and its concentration in towns, with all the difficult problems which these changes involve. Political thought has had enough to do to adjust the balance between decreasing rural and increasing urban constituencies—to meet the wants of a democracy advancing in prosperity and intelligence, to maintain an equilibrium between new and conflicting forces. Moral effort has been strained to the utmost in dealing with education, sanitation, social reformation, and kindred questions, a deepening sense of public responsibility in such matters going hand in hand with an almost paralyzing increase in the masses to be dealt with. Under such circumstances it is scarcely to be wondered at that British people within the United Kingdom have been too much absorbed in what was directly before them to weigh carefully the results of what was going on abroad; that even when most active in external as well as internal affairs they seem to have conquered and peopled half the world in a fit of absence of mind.'

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In the colonies the preoccupation of thought and energy has with equal reason been as complete. It is scarce fifty years since the Canadian provinces obtained local self-government. The last half century has witnessed the growth of a most complete system of municipal and provincial institutions, crowned by a great act of constructive statesmanship in Confederation. The organization of half a continent on material lines has kept pace with each step in political construction. Railroads, canals, telegraphs, postal facilities, steamboat communication, all the machinery of modern civilization, have been widely applied to an immense area.

In Australia movement has been even more rapid and engrossing. Melbourne has changed in fifty years from a village of a thousand inhabitants to a city of 500,000. Australian commerce, in its infancy when the Queen came to the throne, now equals that of the United Kingdom at the same date. New Zealand, then the home of mere savages, has already a British population which exports annually £10,000,000 worth of the products of civilized labour. In South Africa half a continent is being organized under conditions of extreme difficulty.

In the rush of progress so swift as this, the mass of men are conscious chiefly of the work immediately before them. But as this work grows under their hands, the vast external interests are created, and the wide external connections grow up, which compel attention to the larger problems which they involve.

{25}

The local politician, as provinces consolidate, is, by a process of natural compulsion, changed into the statesman with a national and international range of political vision.

It seems almost superfluous to point out that in striving for closer consolidation British people would be following strictly along the lines of the most striking national movements of modern times. They would be merely keeping abreast of the spirit of the age.

For the idea of national unity the people of the United States twenty-five years ago made sacrifices of life and money without a parallel in modern history. No one now doubts that the end justified the enormous expenditure of national force. 'The Union must be preserved' was the pregnant sentence into which Lincoln condensed the national duty of the moment, and to maintain this principle he was able to concentrate the national energy for a supreme effort. The strong man who saved the great republic from disruption takes his place, without a question, among the benefactors of mankind.

Germany struggled through years of difficulty, conflict, and swaying tides of national passion towards the ideal of a united fatherland. The ideal has been realised; the men who made its attainment possible have won, not merely the gratitude of their countrymen, but the world's respect as well; even their acts of despotism are forgiven and more than half forgotten in the momentous significance of their one supreme {26} achievement. Today it seems as if their work of consolidated strength was the best guarantee of Europe's peace.

Cavour's statue stands in the squares of Italian cities—his name lingers in Italian hearts. To Tuscan, Lombard, and Neapolitan alike he is 'our great Cavour'—the man whose courageous genius found a basis in facts for the conception of Italian unity, whose patient and resolute diplomacy made possible the satisfaction of the national aspiration.

Canada has placed first on her roll of greatness the statesman, to whom she mainly owes the achievement of Federal unity. Thus beyond a doubt the men who have graven their names most deeply on the history of our time are those who have carried out in many lands and under varying conditions the work of national consolidation. American unity, German unity, Italian unity, Austro-Hungarian unity—the expansion of Russia without loss of unity—these are the accomplished facts of our time which we have to face. More than this. We do not need the philosophical historian to tell us, for the process is going on under our own eyes, that a governing tendency of the age is towards the union of many states into combinations of nearly equal strength—sometimes by fusion, sometimes by federation, sometimes by alliance. On the practical equipoise of two such great groups the equilibrium of Europe at this moment depends. Race adds its influence to the tendency. Pan-Sclavism—Pan-Latinism—Pan-Teutonism {27} are more than names. They are forces which play their part in moulding the destinies of nations and governments. The aspect of the whole world irresistibly suggests the thought that we are passing from a nation epoch to a federation epoch. That British people should fall in with this tendency is in the strict line of historical continuity. 'From clans in the north,' it has been truly said, 'and from a heptarchy in the south, England and Scotland grew into nations and thence into one nation.' In the great offshoots of the race abroad the tendency is renewed, and each step prepares the way for another and greater effort. To consolidate the empire which Chatham founded is the one manifest opportunity remaining in the British world for British statesmen to place their names in our history beside those of the greatest of the statesmen of the past.

For the mother-land an organized national unity means, not degradation from her imperial position, but a frank acceptance of the facts of national growth, and the greater dignity which would come from acknowledged leadership of the free communities which have grown up around her.

Prussia gained, instead of losing, in dignity, when many of the higher functions of her historic parliament became merged in those of the Reichstag of the German people, when she gave up her individual place as a nation in Europe to assume the leadership of the German Empire. So would it be with Great Britain.

{28}

For the colonies national unity means independence: not 'virtual' independence, as their present ill-defined condition is sometimes spoken of, but the manly and sufficient independence which comes from asserted rights and assumed responsibilities.

There are two kinds of independence. The first is that of the son grown restless under tutelage, who throws himself off, more or less recklessly, from the family connection, refuses family advice or assistance, and takes the chances of life on his own account. Given, on the one hand, overbearing and unsympathetic parents anxious to retain their control till the last moment, or, on the other, children filled with ignorant self-conceit and consequent discontent, and independence of this first type is the natural result. Sometimes it is justified, and succeeds; sometimes it is born of blind stupidity and makes lamentable shipwreck. But this is not the ideal or the only form of independence. Given reason, due consideration, mutual regard for rights on both sides, and the family tie becomes a partnership which combines the advantages of all the liberty required for full development with the unity of action and counsel which assures strength. It produces a great Rothschild firm, each head of which is free to work out his own views at his own centre of the world's finance, but each in touch with the other for counsel or action, each making use of the business machinery established by all the rest, and thus securing incomparable business advantages for all. So in a wider sphere it produces the nation—the great {29} American Republic—the Swiss, Germanic, or Canadian Confederation; each state or group of states working independently within its own well-defined sphere of influence; each taking its share as freely in the equally well-defined but wider orbit of a large national life.

Our admiration is not given to the independence of the American state, or the Canadian or Australian province when holding aloof from union, where we feel that a spirit of petty provincialism is at work. Nor can it be reasonably given to the independence of the Greek state impatient of any control beyond that which is found within a city's walls. At least, in this case, if we admire, we pity still more, for the lack of the power to preserve the liberty which the city had created. We reserve our admiration for the reasoned and secured independence of a state whose members have abandoned the petty side of their individuality, and displayed that political self-restraint, sagacity, and largeness of view which is implied in wide organization for the attainment of great ends.

It is to this independence of partnership that a real national unity would lift the colonies of the British Empire. Doubtless it would at first be the partnership of junior members. More than this could not reasonably be expected. But the position need not be an irksome one.

One primary principle reason approves and experience recommends for our guidance in attempting to outline the form of union which will best be adapted {30} to the genius of the British people. For all its communities there should be the utmost freedom of individual action which is consistent with united strength. Apparently this condition will be best fulfilled under some form of Federal connection.

[1] Lord Dufferin dedicated a Canadian edition of his 'Letters from High Latitudes' in the words 'To that true North.' I cannot refrain from connecting with these lines one more association which will, I feel sure, in Canadian hearts at least, add a tender grace to the vigorous thought of the poet and the delicate compliment of the politician. I am able to do so through the accident of a conversation with the late Rev. Drummond Rawnsley, of Lincolnshire, a connexion and intimate friend of Lord Tennyson, whom I happened to meet some years since at the house of a common friend, Professor Bonamy Price, at Oxford. Introduced to him by our host as a Canadian, I was informed by him of a fact which he felt sure would interest all Canadians. The Poet Laureate, with whom he had lately been staying, had told him that when the articles referred to had appeared in the Times, Lady Franklin, who was then a guest in his house, and who felt the most intense interest in the future of Canada, had been filled with indignation at the wrong which they did to English sentiment and to Canadian loyalty, and had strongly urged upon him the duty and propriety of giving utterance to some sufficient protest. Being in the fullest sympathy with Lady Franklin's views, the poet acted upon this suggestion and the lines were written. I do not think any private confidence is violated in mentioning the facts told to me on such unquestionable authority. It seems well that Canadian people should know when reading these lines, that behind the poet's brain was the woman's heart, and that a lady whose name is held in highest honour wherever the English language is spoken, and wherever heroism and devotion touch the human heart, is thus connected by the subtle thread of sympathy and the golden verse of our greatest poet with their own loved land.

{31}

CHAPTER II.

FEDERATION.

THE central internal fact, then, which must soon bring about a decisive change in our system of national organization is the necessity that British people in all parts of the Empire should have, if they are to remain together and so far as circumstances permit, full and equal privileges of self-government and citizenship. The political instinct which works in this direction nothing can resist, for it has become innate in all that is best in our race. The colonist who is permanently content with less has lost no small part of the spirit of his ancestors.

The central external fact which points to federation rather than separation as the form which that change should take is the necessity for joint defence of great common interests, and the joint management of international relations.

It may be fairly claimed that in accepting the federal idea Anglo-Saxon peoples have reached the crown of their political achievement, inasmuch as it offers a compromise between excessively centralized systems of government, which gave strength at the {32} expense of local freedom, and those other systems which for the sake of local freedom sacrificed the strength which was necessary for their own preservation. The liberty of the small Greek Republic was in some aspects a glorious thing contrasted with the despotisms around it, yet we cannot but remember that for want of power to combine that liberty was crushed beneath the heel of the foreigner. Federalism is the device by which organized democracy, without giving up anything essential to liberty, is placed in a position to wrestle on even terms with organized despotism.

An Australian writer has lately defined very justly the true reason for the application of the Federal principle. 'It may be said,' he remarks, 'that federation becomes desirable where, on the one hand, the country is too enormous in extent and too diverse in conditions for its internal affairs to be satisfactorily managed by one central government, while, on the other hand, the communities have certain common interests best served by their coming together, or are confronted by common dangers if they keep apart.' Never in the history of the world were these conditions more completely fulfilled than in the case of the British Empire. But objections to a federal organization for the Empire are at once raised. 'The areas and communities to be dealt with are too vast, the problem too complex, and the consequent difficulty of giving an adequate organization too great for such a plan to be thought of.' To this it may be answered {33} that the growth of the United States has widened political horizons. It has proved that immense territorial extent is not incompatible, under modern conditions, with that representative system of popular government which had its birth and development in England, and its most notable adaptation in America. It has shown that the spread of a nation over vast areas, including widely-separated states with diverse interests, need not prevent it from becoming strongly bound together in a political organism which combines the advantages of national greatness and unity of purpose with jealously guarded freedom of local self-government. So that if the birth of the American Republic suggested the confident inference that the inevitable tendency of new communities was to detach themselves like ripe fruit from the parent stem, the circumstances of its growth have done much to dissipate the idea. The United States have illustrated on a great scale the advantages of national unity; their example has pointed the way to its attainment. That example has been followed in one great British community; it is being adopted in another.

But in the United States, in Canada, in Australia it is urged, we have continental contiguity. The British Empire is too large, its parts, separated by oceans, are unfitted for government under a common federal system. We can at least answer that the standard of possible size for a nation has steadily enlarged in the course of history. For a federal system the unit may be small or large, there seems {34} to be a measure by which to fix the possible size of the unit in any case. The breadth of interest is this measure. In a United British Empire each of the federated countries, as commercial communities, would have interests all over the world, and having such interests would have a justification for being units in a world-wide Oceanic Empire.

For great trading communities, moreover, we must remember that oceans do not divide. The almost instantaneous transmission of thought, the cheap transmission of goods, the speedy travel possible for man, have revolutionised pre-existing conditions in commerce and society, once more widening our horizon. The fact lies at the very basis of our national prosperity; it is recognised in the every-day transactions of commercial life. Why should it not be admitted among the ordinary considerations of political life as well?

Communities so remote from each other as those which compose the Empire, it is said again, 'cannot have those common interests which are necessary to give cohesion to a nation.' Let us consider the point.

I go into a woollen mill in Yorkshire or the south of Scotland. Its proprietor, a great organizer of industry, shows me over the vast establishment, from the warehouse where the bales of wool are being packed as they arrive after their long voyage from the antipodes, through the washing, combing, spinning, weaving, dyeing, and pressing rooms till we come to the show rooms where the completed goods are awaiting sale and shipment to the furthest {35} corners of the world. He tells me that any circumstance which checked the steady supply of the raw material even for a few weeks would leave all this extensive and complicated mass of machinery idle; would throw his employees, numbered by thousands, out of employment; would bring himself face to face with ruin and his people with want. Any circumstances which checked the steady shipment of the manufactured goods to distant markets would produce consequences scarcely less immediate or less disastrous. I find the proprietor day by day anxiously watching the reports of the wool sales in London, and through them anything that affects the wool trade in Sydney, Melbourne, or Dunedin. Clearly this man and those who work for him must look far afield, if they consider all the conditions upon which their prosperity depends. They are types which represent many millions of people in the United Kingdom.

I go to Australia or New Zealand, and find myself the guest of a squatter on his remote station. The sheep in his flocks number perhaps a hundred thousand. He shows me his station houses, his shearing sheds, his wool sheds, his vast paddocks enclosed with hundreds of miles of wire fencing, all his extensive plant, his horses, his shepherds, his band of shearers. He has to fight against drought; swarms of rabbits may threaten him with ruin; his year's clip of wool may, as the result of past disasters, be mortgaged to the Banks. But if the telegraph tells him that wool is rising in the London market, that the {36} factories at Leeds and Halifax and Huddersfield are running at their utmost capacity, that Yorkshire is prosperous, he is cheerful and faces his difficulties with a hopeful mind. A good year's sales will repay him for his risks and recoup him for the losses of the past. Cut this man off from access to the home markets for a few months, block the ports from which he ships his wool, or break the line of his communication, and his industry is paralysed, his workmen without pay; the bank which backs him and stakes much on the prosperity of him and his like may close its doors. Here manifestly is a man who, with his organized army of industry, from the shepherd who tends the sheep to the lumper who handles the bales at the docks, has interests which extend further than his immediate neighbourhood.

I go on board one of the great liners which run between Australia and England, and which may be taken to represent the third great form of British industry. Down in her hold, forming the chief part of her cargo, are several thousand bales of wool. When she returns the wool will be replaced by manufactured goods. The profits of the company which owns and manages her depend upon the prosperity of the great manufacturing communities at home and the great producing areas abroad; upon the pressure of outward and homeward trade. Upon the absolute safety from hostile attack of this vessel and her like in passing over many thousand miles of sea depends once more the industrial security of the vast multitudes of human {37} beings for whom and between whom she carries on exchange.

Can community of interest and mutual dependence be more complete than this? Of the man who produces the raw material, the man who works it up, and the man who carries between them, can we say where the interest of the one begins and the other ends? Yet what has been said of one raw material of production and manufacture may be said of a hundred. What has been said of wool may be said of wheat, for artizans must be fed while they work, and more and more English people at home will have to depend on English people abroad for their supplies of wheat. It may be said of meat, which every year, in increasing quantity, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia send to the mother-land.

No limit can be put to the range of common interest between communities of which one devotes its industry chiefly to supplying the raw material of commerce, the other to its manufacture.

This community of industrial interest is strengthened by a thousand influences which give community of thought in almost every relation of life, and must be reckoned among the forces which make for cohesion.

The population which flows into the waste places of the colonies comes chiefly from the motherland, not driven out by religious persecution or political tyranny, but impelled by the spirit of enterprize or in search of the larger breathing and working space of new countries. In almost every case the emigrant {38} makes a new bond of friendly connection. He leaves the old Britain without any feeling of bitterness, and often with friendly aid; he finds a welcome as well as a home in the new Britain beyond the seas. There the links of connection multiply and strengthen. Cheaper ocean transport, cheaper postage, cheaper telegraph rates, are constantly making it easier for him to keep in touch with the old home. His daily or weekly paper has its columns of English news, keeping him well informed about all that most closely concerns the nation's life. The best products of the best minds of the motherland furnish his chief intellectual food, and form the basis of his education. Cheaper and cheaper editions poured out by competitive publishers in the centres of cheap production bring all the master minds who have spoken or written in the English tongue within easy reach even on an Australian station or a Canadian prairie. The tick of the telegraph keeps the financial and speculative interests of the whole outlying Empire in almost instant touch with those at the centre. The philanthropic and social movements which originate in the old lands or the new find an almost immediate reflection or response in the other. Pan-Anglican Synods, Oecumenical Councils, and General Assemblies, together with the great Missionary and Bible Societies, keep in closest touch the religious thought and activities of the British world. The British Association for the Advancement of Science meets in Montreal, and finds itself as much at home there as in {39} London, Edinburgh, or Dublin. Competitions of skill in arms or in athletics add their manifold links of connection. It seems as if Pan-Britannic contests of the kind on a great scale might yet revive the memories of the old Greek world. Already corps of riflemen or artillerymen meet in friendly competition year by year at Wimbledon, Bisley, or Shoeburyness.

The young Australian or Canadian who begins to practice with the cricket-bat or oar is already in imagination measuring his skill and strength against the best that Great Britain can produce, nor has the cricketer or oarsman of the United Kingdom gained his final place in the athletic world till he has tested his powers on Australian fields or Canadian waters. The eager interest with which in either hemisphere the tour of a selected team or the performance of a champion sculler is watched from day to day is a curious proof of the intimacy of thought made possible by existing means of communication.

The great labour conflicts of the past two or three years have furnished striking examples of the vital sympathy which springs from nationality and close social and commercial connection. During the Australian strike of last year, day after day, by message and manifesto, each party to the contest strove to bring over public opinion in Great Britain to its side, while the funds raised on the one side of the world today were on the morrow giving support and encouragement to those they were intended to assist at the other. Once more there is the sense of common {40} and equal ownership of great national memories and names. The people of the great colonies have never broken with national traditions. They are able to enter without reserve into that passionate affection with which Shakespeare and Milton, Scott and Burns, loved their native land, even while pointing out her faults. The statue of a national hero, like Gordon, finds its place as naturally on a square of Melbourne as on Trafalgar Square itself. Equally in place are the memorial tablet to an Australian statesman in the crypt of St. Paul's beside the tombs of Nelson and Wellington, or the memorial service at Westminster to a statesman of the Empire who did his work in Canada.

It may be asked whether it can be supposed that the great colonies, widely separated as they are, will ever learn to think and act together politically; whether, for instance, Australians can ever be expected to take interest in Canadian fishery disputes, or Canadians sympathize in Australian excitement about New Caledonia or New Guinea. 'Canada and Australia,' says Mr. Freeman, 'care a great deal for Great Britain; we may doubt whether, apart from Great Britain, Canada and Australia care very much for one another. There may be American States which care yet less for one another; but in their case mere continuity produces a crowd of interests and relations common to all. We may doubt whether the confederation of States so distant as the existing colonies of Great Britain, whether the bringing them into closer relations with one another as well as with Great Britain, will at all {41} tend to the advance of a common national unity among them[1].'

The question thus raised is an interesting one, not to be dismissed in a word. Some force is given to it by the wide separation of the colonies from each other, and the lack of intercourse in the past. But anyone who watches colonial questions closely sees that great changes are taking place. Till a very few years ago Canada looked to Australia only eastward across the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. The Dominion has now become like Australia, a state upon the Pacific, with interests in that ocean which are sure to become very considerable. Lines of steamship, postal, and cable communication between the two countries are already in contemplation. The safety of such routes would of itself form a great common interest. Passing through the centre of the Pacific it would tend to create those national interests which would increase British influence in that ocean—an end very much in Australasian thought.

On the Atlantic Canada is extending her trade relations with another group of colonies, the West Indies. This trade promises to develop greatly in the future, for as one country is in the temperate zone and the other in the tropics, each seems the natural complement of the other in range of production. The opening of a Panama route would give the Australian colonies a profound interest in the strength of the British position in the West Indies.

{42}

Australia and New Zealand, again, have a substantial interest in the political fortunes of South Africa, since in that country is the most vulnerable point of their most important trade route. In the Naval Annual for 1890 Lord Brassey estimates the outward-bound Australasian trade which passes the Cape at twenty millions sterling per annum, and uses the statement to enforce his views as to the national importance of making perfectly secure our position at this great turning-point of the world's commerce.

But I do not wish to lay undue stress upon these facts, which are only intended to be illustrations of the existence and growth of common interests between different groups of colonies. They are suggestions of future possibilities rather than powerful factors in the present.

It is more pertinent to measure the strength of the forces which at the present time make effectively for national cohesion. Nobody doubts that if today either Canada or Australia were attacked by any foreign power the whole might of Great Britain would be put forth to protect them. As little doubt can there be that if Britain were wantonly attacked and engaged in a struggle for existence, each of these great colonies would be ready with such assistance as it could give. Race sentiment and national honour, to say nothing of self-interest, would combine, as things now stand, to make these results as certain as anything can be in human affairs. The common {43} bond with the mother-land seems to me a guarantee of sufficient unity between the colonies—not so close, not so instinctive, it is true as the more direct tie, but still amply sufficient to give effective national cohesion. All the colonies are parts of the same great body; all would alike suffer from the weakness of the whole. All would gain indefinitely from united strength.

'In their case,' to repeat what Mr. Freeman says of the United States, 'mere continuity produces a crowd of interest and relations common to all.' But if Mr. Freeman reflects that seventy-seven per cent. of Australia's trade, eighty per cent. of New Zealand's trade, eighty-five per cent. of South Africa's trade, fifty per cent of Canada's trade, finds its way backward and forward over the vast oceans which separate these colonies from Britain, or from each other, he will be forced to admit that mere distance of separation produces, if not a crowd of interests and relations, at least a few interests and relations common to all which are practically predominant. No states of the American Union have an interdependence of financial and commercial relations proportionally so exclusive and complete as those which exist between New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, or even Canada and Great Britain. 'It is hard to believe,' adds Mr. Freeman, 'that states which are united only by a sentiment, which have so much, both political and physical, to keep them asunder, will be kept together by a sentiment only.' Mr. Freeman has evidently not studied {44} the facts of colonial trade, or the relations of English and colonial industry[2].

Another practical aspect of the question naturally appeals strongly to many minds. We are the most strenuous working race of the world, and the problems of labour fill a large place in our thoughts of the present and the future. Not only to hold our own in the keen competition going on with the rest of the world in both manufacture and the production of raw material, but also to reach the higher ideal formed of the life possible for a working man, we seek to make as light as may be the burdens which industry must necessarily bear. In all countries no small portion of these are such as are imposed by the needs of national organization—burdens which no country has ever yet escaped, or ever will. In national unity we may have all the advantages and resources of co-operation utilized to this end on a vast scale; one diplomatic and consular service; one fleet instead of several; ports and docks defended at the common expense for the good of all. Under any well-considered scheme it is certain, so far as defence is concerned, that all parts of the Empire would secure {45} a maximum of protection at a minimum of cost, and the same would hold good in regard to other forms of necessary national expense. A nation economizing expenditure in these directions could enlarge it for objects which tended to the common good, and brought advantages within the reach of the masses, cheap postage, cheap telegraphy, cheap transit of every kind. Combinations undertaken for ends such as these could have no savour of an aggressive Imperialism.

To provide for the safety of industry is not Jingoism. Richard Cobden was not under a Jingo influence when he said that he would willingly vote £100,000,000 for the Navy rather than see it unable to fulfil its task of giving security to British commerce. His was rather the expression of strong English common sense, which faces facts and the actual conditions of life. Lord Rosebery is not a Jingo when he suggests that British people can best secure peace by 'preponderance.' The strength of a United Empire would be no more than equal to the increasing tasks which are laid upon it. The fear that Federation with the strength which it gave would make British people the bullies of the world appears absurd. If we have powerful athletic sons we do not cut their muscles or reduce their physique lest they should use their splendid strength to injury of their neighbours; rather do we train them to use it in noble ways—to be foremost in toil, to help the oppressed, to defend the defenceless, to be the strong arbiter between contentious disputants. So with the nation. Doubtless vast {46} strength, without an adequate controlling moral force, has in it a temptation and a danger. But surely the remedy lies in deepening the moral sense, not in limiting or diminishing the material strength of the nation.

To the Christian, the moralist, the philanthropist, no inspiration could be greater than that which might well spring from observing the growing strength of the Empire, and from reflection that this immense energy might be turned in directions which would make for the world's good. And strength beyond all other nations British people must have if they are to face in its fulness the work they have to do. As the outcome of that intense life which has specially characterized the last two hundred years they find themselves front to front with the whole world on every great sphere of action or field of responsibility. They have to face and boldly play their part in the large and complex problems of European politics, when the might of enormous armies stands ready to enforce the decisions of an alliance or the will of a despot. Commerce, extending to the remotest islands or penetrating to the heart of uncivilized continents, makes almost co-extensive with the globe those ordinary interests of British people which require protection. Three hundred millions of mankind, who do not share British blood, of various races and in various climes, acknowledge British sway, and look to it for guidance and protection; their hopes of civilization and social elevation depending {47} upon the justice with which it is exercised, while anarchy awaits them should that rule be removed. Through commerce and widespread territories the nation is brought into constant intercourse and often into the most delicate relations with almost every savage race on the globe, thus standing almost alone of European nations on that border-land where civilization confronts barbarism, of all positions in which a nation can be placed perhaps the one most weighted with responsibilities and most pregnant with possibilities of good and evil. To this position the world's history offers no parallel; beside it Rome's range of influence sinks into comparative insignificance.

But to understand all that it means we must remember that along with this mighty growth of power there has been a steady growth of a public conscience, which holds itself responsible not only for national acts, but for national influence; which refuses to shut its eyes to abuse of power, but rather looks upon power as a sacred trust, to be used for worthy ends. Therein lies the justification of our national greatness, and of the wish that it should be maintained.

    'We sailed wherever ship can sail,
      We founded many a noble state;—
    Pray God our greatness may not fail
      Through craven fear of being great.'

This is the poet's thought and prayer. May it not rightly be the thought and prayer of every British citizen? We have assumed vast responsibilities in the {48} government of weak and alien races, responsibilities which cannot now be thrown off without a loss of national honour, and without infinite harm to those under our rule. A nation which has leaning upon it an Indian population of nearly 300,000,000 over and above the native races of Australasia, South Africa, and many minor regions, must require, if stability and equilibrium are to be maintained, an immense weight of that trained, intelligent, and conscientious citizenship which is the backbone of national strength. It needs to concentrate its moral as well as its political strength for the work it has to do.

If we really have faith in our own social and Christian progress as a nation; if we believe that our race, on the whole, and in spite of many failures, can be trusted better than others, to use power with moderation, self-restraint, and a deep sense of moral responsibility; if we believe that the wide area of our possessions may be made a solid factor in the world's politics, which will always throw the weight of its influence on the side of a righteous peace, then it cannot be inconsistent with devotion to all the highest interests of humanity to wish and strive for a consolidation of British power. It is because I believe that in all the noblest and truest among British people there is this strong faith in our national integrity, and in the greatness of the moral work our race has yet to do, that I anticipate that the whole weight of Christian and philanthropic sentiment will ultimately be thrown on the side of national unity, as opening {49} up the widest possible career of usefulness for us in the future; inasmuch as it will give us the security which is necessary for working out our great national purposes.

The praises of the Federal system of the United States are much dwelt upon now that it has been justified by triumphing over the difficulties and dangers of a century. It seems the natural and easy outgrowth of the circumstances in which the original colonies found themselves at the close of the Revolution. The conditions under which it was created and exists are pointed out as ideally favourable for national unity on a federal basis—contiguity, common interest, sentiment based on a common history, and other facts and considerations of a parallel kind.

Far different from this did the task of framing the Federal Constitution seem to those who had it in hand. It has been described by Mr. Bryce as 'a work which seemed repeatedly on the point of breaking down, so great were the difficulties encountered from the divergent sentiments and interests of the different parts of the country, as well as of the larger and smaller states.' The same writer adds: 'The Convention had not only to create de novo, on the most slender basis of pre-existing institutions, a national government for a widely scattered people, but they had in doing so to respect the fears and jealousies and apparently irreconcileable interests of thirteen separate commonwealths, to all of whose governments it was necessary to leave a sphere of {50} action wide enough to satisfy a deep-rooted sentiment, yet not so wide as to imperil national unity.'

Yet once more we read of difficulties curiously like those which are urged as making British unity impossible now. 'Their geographical position made communication very difficult. The sea was stormy in winter, the roads were bad, it took as long to travel by land from Charleston to Boston as to cross the ocean to Europe, nor was the journey less dangerous. The wealth of some states consisted in slaves; of others in shipping; while in others there was a population of small farmers, characteristically attached to old habits. Manufactures had hardly begun to exist. The sentiment of local independence showed itself in intense suspicion of any external authority; and most parts of the country were so thinly peopled that the inhabitants had lived practically without any government, and thought that in creating one they would be forging fetters for themselves.'

Difficulties, then, are no new thing in national organization. They may be, as they have been, but the spur to the determined will of nation or individual. They are to be measured by the resources at our disposal with which to confront them.

Admitting the difficulties involved in framing a Federal system we must at the same time remember the long and peculiar training which our race has had in dealing with them. Acute minds have been turned upon the problem, systems have been framed and adopted by vast populations, and time has tested {51} the results. The experience of the United States extends over more than a century of strenuous national life and wonderful growth. In the light of that experience, and to meet her own necessities, Canada faced the question a quarter of a century ago, and framed a system which works well and gives assurance of permanence. Encouraged by these examples, Australia is taking steps to frame a similar union. Thus three great English-speaking communities have had their thoughts fixed with anxious attention upon Federal problems. In forming or in carrying on these three great English-speaking federations, fundamental principles have been so exhaustively studied and so thoroughly tested that the conditions that must control Federal organization may now be stated with a very considerable degree of accuracy. Germany, Switzerland, and Austro-Hungary all furnish data which assist in making conclusions definite. An adoption of Federalism is therefore no longer a leap in the dark. The losses and gains which it involves can be weighed and measured.

With such a range of history and experience to fall back upon it ought to be possible for a practical self-governing people to distinguish between the relations they wish to control through the smaller machinery of local government, and those they are content to submit to the larger machinery of a central government: to draw, in short, a true line of division between those interests which are peculiar to each {52} member of the Federation and those which are common to all.

In this connection Professor Ransome has stated what seems to me a striking and most suggestive view. He points out that the geographical relations of the great divisions of the Empire lend themselves naturally to Federal organization on a large scale. A primary difficulty in all federations, as I have said, is to draw a sufficiently defined line between those local questions in the settlement of which communities, and most of all Anglo-Saxon communities, will brook no interference from outsiders, and those other questions in which all have a common interest, and are content to have only a proportionate voice. Great Britain, Canada, Australia, South Africa, have each internal problems of their own to wrestle with, which each can solve only for itself, and about which it would resist dictation or resent even advice from all or any of the others. Such are the relations of French and English in Canada; of white and coloured labour in Australia; of Boer and Englishman in South Africa; of Irish Home Rulers and Unionists in the United Kingdom. But the fact that Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and South Africa lie in different quarters of the globe at once distinguishes broadly all questions of this kind, and diminishes the probability of conflict. On the other hand the very distance of separation makes it impossible, except by united action, to deal adequately with the vast interests common to all. To draw the line of {53} distinction between things purely local and such as are general in status thus widely separated would be much easier than to do the same for the contiguous sovereign states of the American Republic, or the contiguous provinces of Canada or Australia. The very diversity and peculiarity of local interest simplify the task.

It is to be noted, also, that in forming a British Federal system we should be relieved from what was the most difficult problem which presented itself to the framers of the American constitution. It was necessary to create a head for the state, and a method was devised with elaborate caution for doing this in freedom from the storms of party passion. In actual working that system has broken away from the original intention of its authors, and more than once the quadrennial selection of a party head to the American Republic has put a heavy strain upon the machinery of national government.

The British nation, on the other hand, has a head which commands reasoned and personal allegiance in all parts of the Empire. Under it the popular will reaches its end with less friction than under any other method yet devised. The system has been proved capable of easy and satisfactory application to the wants of the colonies, even under a federal organization such as that of Canada. The possession of such a starting-point will prove of enormous practical advantage in facing the problems of national organization.

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The fact that the constituent elements of the proposed federation are not at the same stage of political development naturally occurs as a difficulty. Canada, in having a fully matured internal system, is riper for federation than Australia, Australia than South Africa, South Africa than the West Indies.

The circumstance is often urged as a conclusive argument for delay: it is sometimes represented as an insuperable obstacle to any present progress towards closer unity. The condition is no new one to existing federal systems, nor has it proved an obstacle of importance to the framing of an adequate constitution. Both the United States and Canada have a carefully arranged system by which their younger communities are admitted by successive stages into fuller privileges of citizenship, each as it reaches a fixed period of maturity becoming entitled to the full franchise of state or province. As well argue that a man must not admit his eldest son into partnership until the youngest has come of age, as claim that Canada, with its constitution already consolidated by a quarter of a century's history, must still wait another quarter or half century for its rightful position in the nation to which it belongs because the West Indies and South Africa have not been able to work their way through certain stages of political evolution. Strange, indeed, would have been the political position of the United States had they waited to frame their federal system till Colorado was on a level with Massachusetts. For a nation {55} like ours, constantly expanding, and with possibilities for further extension even greater than the United States, common sense would seem to indicate the maturity of the first great colonies, the period when they might fairly be expected to desire some final decision about their national destiny, as the time when the basis of a Federal system, applicable on a fixed principle to all, should be determined. They are then free, as each advances to maturity, to choose between independence and entrance into the national system.

The concession of Responsible Government to the colonies was an important, but by no means a final step in political development. From some points of view the change seemed to superficial observers very closely akin to the concession of independence. It gave the absolute control of local affairs, the power of levying taxes, and of applying the proceeds; but the higher functions of government, it must be remembered, still remained with the central power. Not only was this so, but the responsibilities of independence were clearly not imposed in the same proportion that its privileges were granted.

In the minds of some colonists and more Englishmen I have found a belief, or rather a suspicion, that any closer union than at present exists could only be effected by taking away from the colonies some of the self-governing powers which they now possess. That this is necessary is clearly a mistake, and one which probably arises from the erroneous impression about {56} the degree of self-government which a colony enjoys. Not the resignation of old powers, but the assumption of new ones, must be the result of Federal union. A colony has now no power of making peace or war; no voice, save by the courtesy of the mother-country, in making treaties; no direct influence on the exercise of national diplomacy. Admitted to an organic union, its voice would be heard and its influence felt in the decision of these questions. To the Imperial Parliament, that is, as things now stand, to the Parliament of the United Kingdom, is reserved the right to override the legislation of a colony, just as, for example, the Parliament of the Dominion has the right to override the legislation of a Canadian Province. But as the Canadian feels in this no sense of injustice or tyranny, since he is represented in the superior as well as in the inferior Legislature, so the colonist would feel no loss of political dignity if he had his true place in the higher as well as in the lower representative body. With enlarged powers, it is true, the colony would have to accept enlarged responsibilities. In human affairs the two invariably and rightly go together[3]. If, instead {57} of federation, a colony chose independence, it would evidently be compelled at once to assume the control of all questions now reserved for Imperial treatment, and the corresponding burdens now provided for at Imperial expense. In a closer union the larger control and the larger responsibility would be assumed in partnership rather than individually. Surely this is not subtracting anything from the power of self-government. It is the means of making it complete.

Shall it, then, be separation or closer union? Shall we face the dangers which few can deny will be incident to the disintegration even by Act of Parliament and mutual consent of the greatest nation of the world; or shall we choose, as a wiser alternative, to confront, as in the past, the difficulties of such political reconstruction or adaptation as is required to meet new national needs? This is the question which not merely may arise, but certainly must arise within a very measurable time to be settled by British people in all parts of the world.

It has been said that all great movements which affect the condition of peoples are originated and carried forward by the combination of two forces: the force of conviction, which comes from reason, and the force of enthusiasm, which is born of sentiment. It is generally supposed that Anglo-Saxon people are most strongly influenced by reason, by arguments directed to their intelligence. Yet it may be doubted if in any race, sentiment plays a more decisive part in {58} moulding public action. It lives in the pages of Milton, Shakespeare, Scott, Burns, Tennyson, and in distant lands loses none of its power to stir men's hearts. It has profoundly influenced Canadian history for more than a hundred years. It flames up in every colony when a crisis arises when British honour is at stake.

Millions of people in distant parts of the world glory in the right to speak of England, Scotland, or Ireland under the tender name of home. A sentiment indeed, but a mighty power. It is true that the term 'loyalty,' as it has usually been applied to British colonies and colonists in their relations to the United Kingdom, is in some ways becoming an obsolete and unmeaning term. A larger loyalty which has in it no suspicion of dependence is taking its place. It is one which implies faithfulness to the great nationality to which we belong, its heart, indeed, and its greatest traditions in Britain, but its mighty limbs and no small share of its hopes for the future on the world's circumference. It is at the bar of this loyalty that the Briton at home as well as the Briton abroad must be judged. The sentiment on which it partly rests is one we need not fear to count upon, and it has its limits only with the British world. It has been proof against the defects of an illogical system: it will prove the main element of cohesion in a true system. But we need not fear to turn away entirely from sentiment to study the dry facts of material interest which each of the greater communities of the Empire has in National Unity.

[1] Britannic Confederation, p. 54.

[2] Since the above was written we have been called upon to lament the great loss which English literature has suffered in Mr. Freeman's death. I cannot but think that the critical attitude which he took towards British unity is explained by a remark which I have lately found in his Impressions of the United States. He says, 'Greatly to my ill-luck, I am wholly ignorant of all things bearing on commerce, manufactures, or agriculture.' Are not these the questions which really dominate British national development?

[3] 'No community which is not primarily charged with the ordinary business of its own maintenance and defence is really, or can be, in the full sense of the word, a free community. The privileges of freedom and the burdens of freedom are absolutely associated together. To bear the burden is as necessary as to enjoy the privilege, in order to form that character which is the great necessity of freedom itself.'—Mr. Gladstone before the Colonial Committee, 1859.

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CHAPTER III.

DEFENCE.

IN beginning his elaborate study of the Empire and its capacity for defence, the author of 'The Problems of Greater Britain' says:—

'The danger in our path is that the enormous forces of European militarism may crush the old country and destroy the integrity of our Empire before the growth of the newer communities that it contains has made it too strong for the attack.' In closing he says: 'The result of this survey of Imperial Defence is to bring before the mind a clearer image of the stupendous potential strength of the British Empire, and of an equally stupendous carelessness in organizing its forces. … Our ambition is not for offensive strength, and not only home-staying Britons, but our more energetic colonists themselves, decline to accept such organization of our power, with the temptations that it would bring. We wish only to be safe from the ambition of others, and the first step towards safety must be the arrangement of consistent plans for supporting the whole edifice of British rule by the assistance of all the component parts of the Empire. As all have helped to raise the fabric, so may all combine {60} to secure it by the adoption of a settled plan of Imperial Defence.'

The defence of common interests has been, in the past, the primary bond which has held federations together. It must be put in the very forefront among the arguments for British unity. Taken by itself it seems to furnish more than sufficient reason why Great Britain and her colonies should present a united political front to the world.

Common interests so vast no nation or union of nations has ever before had in the history of the world. The foundations of British greatness rest in the creative power of industry, and that interaction of industry or exchange of products which we call commerce. Industry and commerce have combined to make our nation the richest in the world. We are a race of workers and of traders. It is in virtue of our working and trading instincts that we hold today the foremost place among the nations of the world. In following them we have won Empire; it seems capable of proof that to satisfy their necessities we must maintain Empire, for what we have been in the past such we are manifestly to be on a much larger scale in the future.

Transferred to Canada, or Australia, New Zealand, the Cape, or to foreign lands, the Briton is still the eager worker and trader, and the field for the exercise of his qualities is ever enlarging. As the standard of living rises with increasing prosperity, as the comforts and luxuries of distant lands come within reach of even {61} the labouring man, commerce is stimulated anew; its safety becomes of greater concern. In the strength of the British flag to give security to the infinite army of workers who carry on their toil under its protection, is involved the welfare and prosperity of the greatest aggregation of human beings that ever was joined together in one body politic.

It is when we consider the extent of British commerce, of what the nation constantly has staked upon the security of ocean trade, that we realize the vastness and importance of the problems involved in national defence, the supreme necessity that British people should be in a position either to command peace, or to face with confidence, so far as trade is concerned, the risks of any war that may be forced upon them.

To most minds figures perhaps convey but an inadequate idea of what they represent, but it is only by figures that the extent of the stake which British people have upon the ocean can be indicated. The rapidity of expansion is as striking as the actual extent, and they may usefully be put together. In 1837, when the Queen ascended the throne, the annual value of the sea-commerce of the United Kingdom, together with that of the colonies and dependencies, was estimated at £210,000,000. That commerce has now, in a little more than fifty years, expanded to nearly £1200,000,000. Every year British people have afloat upon the ocean wealth represented by this enormous sum. Nothing like it has ever been {62} known in the history of any nation before. The marvellous expansion still goes on. In the case of the colonies and dependencies, with their unlimited possibilities of development, it is manifest that we see but the beginning of their commercial career. For them, as for the mother-islands, the safety of trade, the security of the ocean waterways, must in the interests of industry be the supreme object of statesmanship. And I believe that there is a well-nigh unanswerable line of argument which goes to prove that statesmanship will find that security most certainly and most effectually by maintaining intact the actual unity of the Empire through such further political consolidation of its various parts as will make united action possible and most effective. On the other hand, there are the strongest reasons for thinking that the separation of even one of the great colonies might produce for the colony itself, for the United Kingdom, and for the Empire at large, a fatal flaw in the capacity for defending interests which are vital to the general prosperity and to the greatness of the nation.

The outline of this argument may be shortly stated.

The vast magnitude of the Empire, and its dispersion in the various quarters of the globe, have hitherto oppressed the imagination of those charged with its defence. Vulnerability has seemed the natural concomitant of magnitude. The impression might have been correct fifty or seventy-five years ago; it is not so today. It seems a proposition fairly capable of demonstration that under the changed conditions of {63} modern communication and naval war the vast area of the Empire and the wide dispersion of its parts, so far from being a cause of weakness, are really elements, under proper organization, of a strength greater than any nation of present or past times has ever enjoyed. It is a strength, too, which particularly recommends itself to the national mind, since it is effective for defence rather than aggression.

To understand how magnitude and diffusion may be sources of strength we must recall the fact that for all purposes of trade, intercourse, and naval power, the introduction of steam has re-created the world. Before Trafalgar was fought Nelson was able to keep the sea for months, the staying power of a ship of war depending almost entirely upon its supplies of food, water, and warlike stores. Now it has become chiefly a question of coal endurance. Removed from the means of renewing its supplies of coal, the most powerful ship afloat within a very limited number of days becomes a helpless hulk.

'The striking distance of a ship of war is now on an average two thousand miles,' are the words used by Lord Salisbury not long since to indicate the nature and extent of this change in the conditions of naval defence. What he means is, we may suppose, that when a modern ship of war has filled her bunkers with coal, she can go two thousand miles, do the work assigned her, and get safely back to her starting-place. High naval authorities have told me that Lord Salisbury's average is fixed at the outside limit.

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'Our fleet must be present in sufficient force to protect adequately the whole commerce of the Empire, wherever it is,' says the Secretary of the Admiralty in a last year's speech, and the press almost unanimously unites with Chambers of Commerce and other representative bodies in echoing the sentiment as a national resolution.

In discussing a considerable event in naval construction in the beginning of the present year the Times said: 'So far as human effort can attain its end, the country has now definitely resolved that the naval history of the future shall not be unworthy of its past.' It added: 'There is no finality to naval policy. … Its only sound basis is not the cost of the fleet in the abstract, but a rational estimate of the conditions of naval defence at sea.'

But the world is 25,000 miles round, and the commerce of the Empire is upon every sea. The striking distance of a ship of war is 2000 miles, and practically every ship of war we have operates under the limitations imposed by the use of steam. The figures certainly give us the necessary data for calculating what naval bases are necessary for adequate naval strength.

Surely Canada, resting on the North Atlantic and North Pacific; South Africa, commanding the passage around the Cape; and Australasia, in the centre of the vast breadth of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, are not merely useful, but, under the conditions which have been stated, essential. But when we have realized {65} that under modern conditions they are essential to widely extended sea power, we are in a position to understand the addition which they make to defensive strength. A nation which commands the great naval and coaling stations at these essential points could practically paralyze any enemy which sought to attack her, by simply closing the ports of coal supply to hostile ships.

Let me ask the reader to turn to the map of the world which accompanies this book. In it an attempt has been made to emphasize, though not unduly, a few of the main facts connected with our national position. The chief routes of British commerce are indicated—the arteries along which flow the life-blood of the nation. On what is now the principal route to the East, that through the Mediterranean and Red Seas, we note the fortified naval and coaling stations in a connected chain: Gibraltar, Malta, Bombay, Trincomalee, Singapore, and Hong Kong. At each of these stations British ships find themselves under the shelter of strong fortifications. Most of them are practically impregnable, and are supplied with docks for the repair of ships. All are points of storage for coal. Besides these stations of primary importance there are subsidiary ports, Kurrachi, Colombo, Calcutta, and many others.

Whether this remarkable hold on the greatest route of Eastern commerce is the outcome of a grasping militarism, or the natural result which arises from supreme commercial interest, may be judged from a {66} single fact. Of the 3800 steamships which passed through the Canal in 1891 seventy-eight out of every hundred were under the British flag, leaving only twenty-two divided among Frenchmen, Germans, Dutchmen, Austrians, Spaniards, Americans, and all the other nations of the world. Of the whole tonnage eighty-two per cent. was British.

Follow, again, the alternative route to the East and South around Africa. Here we find Sierra Leone, St. Helena, Cape Town, and Mauritius at intervals singularly adapted to the necessities of steam navigation under conditions of either peace or war. Other nations occupy parts of Africa, but none have naval stations of corresponding strength.

Terminating these two great Eastern routes we have in Australasia King George's Sound, Thursday Island, Melbourne, Sydney, and Auckland, which may be regarded as positions of primary naval importance. Some of these are already fortified, others have their defensive works in progress. Secondary, and yet important, are Hobart, Adelaide, Brisbane, Wellington, Lyttleton, Dunedin, and other ports.

Westward across the Atlantic, Halifax, Bermuda, St. Lucia, and Jamaica furnish adequate naval bases for the protection of the vast British commerce which traverses this ocean. The harbours of the Gulf and River St. Lawrence and Newfoundland, and of several West India islands, supplement these strongly fortified positions.

On the Pacific Coast Esquimalt and Vancouver {67} furnish stations from which may be protected the new route of trade and travel opened to the far East, and the projected route to Australasia.

Finally, the Falkland Islands, to which it has now been decided to give adequate fortifications, furnish a coaling place for ships in times of urgent necessity, and a point from which trade can be defended in the long voyage between Britain and Australia by the Cape Horn route. They also serve as a base of protection for our large trade with the Western coast of South America.

It will be seen that the map illustrates another group of facts which we must consider before we can fully grasp the relation of this geographical distribution of the Empire to naval power in an age of steam. On the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of Canada, in New Zealand, Tasmania, New South Wales, and Queensland, in India, Borneo, and South Africa, coal is noted as among the products of these countries, and in them all, there are, in fact, great coal deposits forming in each corner of the globe, a wonderful complement to those of the mother-land.

Here, then, is the outline of a maritime position such as no people ever enjoyed before. North and South, East and West, we bold the great quadrilateral of oceanic power. It is not an undue strength of position, for it has to match the greatest commercial expansion that history has known. The security of each part of the system seems essential to the security {68} of the whole, and therefore should be guaranteed by the united strength of all. And it is clear that under modern steaming conditions it is this very diffusion of the Empire over every part of the world which constitutes its greatest advantage for giving safety to a world-wide commerce.

The conditions, however, under which this maritime position is maintained, and the vast and growing commerce of the Empire now enjoys security present some anomalies which cannot possibly have in them conditions of permanency.

Let me summarize the facts as placed before the House of Commons (March 2nd, 1891), by Sir John Colomb. The annual value of the sea-borne commerce of the United Kingdom is, roughly speaking, about £740,000,000; of the colonies and dependencies £460,000,000. As the latter has increased ninefold and the former but fivefold in a little more than fifty years, it is clear that at no very distant time the sea-borne commerce of the outlying empire will become equal to and gradually surpass in value that of the United Kingdom.

The portion of the whole colonial trade which consists of interchange with the United Kingdom, and in the safety of which presumably the United Kingdom has a close and direct interest, is £187,000,000. This leaves £273,000,000 of independent trade carried on with foreign countries, or between the colonies and dependencies themselves. Compared with the sea-borne trade of great foreign powers which support {69} large war navies, Sir John Colomb finds this independent trade to be 'about four times as much as the whole sea-borne trade of all Russia; about equal to that of Germany; about three-quarters that of France; two and a-half times that of Italy; and nearly half that of the United States.' The whole of this vast and rapidly increasing independent trade has precisely the same guarantee of protection from the naval power of the Empire as the trade of the United Kingdom itself. Yet, while the net expenditure (1890) incurred by the United Kingdom in the Naval Estimates is £14,215,100, the whole contribution of the colonies and dependencies for the same purpose only amounts to £381,546, of which India alone provides £254,776. In other words, out of every pound spent for the protection of the nation's commerce at sea, the United Kingdom contributes 19s. 53/4d., the outlying empire 6 1/4d. This comparison is made even more striking when combined with the statement that the united revenues of the colonies and dependencies amount to £105,000,000, against the £89,000,000 which represent the revenue of the United Kingdom. The vast capital sum invested in ships, armament, and naval establishments, believed to amount to more than £80,000,000, is paid wholly by the taxpayers of the United Kingdom.

Besides the protection to their commerce given by the Navy, colonists enjoy as fully as British people themselves the use and advantage of the consular and diplomatic services of the Empire. The colonial merchant, {70} sailor, or shipmaster finds in every chief port of the world a consul to whom he can apply for protection—an officer whose services are paid for by the British taxpayer alone. The Imperial treasury maintains unaided the costly diplomatic staff which carries on the long and delicate negotiations in which the colonies are often more directly concerned than the mother-land itself. If the results of diplomacy sometimes fail to satisfy colonial expectations, the experience is not new among nations, nor likely to be avoided by the agencies which a colony could independently set in motion. When the execution of treaties involves loss to the individual colonist, the example of Newfoundland and the Behring Sea indicates that it is to the Imperial treasury that he chiefly looks for compensation.

This want of proportion in the distribution of national burdens is so striking that one is impelled to ask if it may not have at least some partial or temporary justification. There is one consideration of much weight. The settlers in the outlying sections of the Empire have been compelled in their short history to face tasks of great difficulty. They have had upon their hands the organization of vast continental areas, the clearing of forests, the construction of highways and railroads, the extension of the post and telegraph over immense distances, the speedy application of the machinery of civilization to new lands. Were it quite certain that all this would become a permanent addition to the strength and resources of the nation, it {71} might well be an object of national policy to relieve them from other burdens, however fair in themselves. There would, on the other hand, be no justification for this if they are in the end to become independent powers or additions to the strength of another state.

In any case, the moment that the ordinary taxpayer of the new land is as able to pay as the ordinary taxpayer of the old, the uneven distribution of responsibility becomes a gross injustice.

Meanwhile it ought to be possible to roughly define even now some of the general principles which should be attended to in distributing this responsibility.

We are fortunate in having the clearly stated opinion of one great colonial thinker upon this point. Joseph Howe is remembered in England, no less than in Canada, as one of the ablest statesmen that the colonies have produced. 'The great orator and patriot,' is the description applied to him by Mr. Goldwin Smith. As the brilliant and triumphant champion of Responsible Government his record places him absolutely beyond the suspicion of subordinating colonial interests to any others. Yet from the very outset he looked upon the attainment of complete independence of local government in the colonies as but a stepping-stone to the assertion of still higher national rights, to the acceptance of still higher responsibilities; to some form of substantial union among British people, based on considerations of equal citizenship and the defence of common interests. As far back as 1854 he delivered in the Nova Scotia Legislature an {72} address, since published in his collected speeches under the name of the 'Organization of the Empire,' which attracted wide attention at the time, and, indeed, embodies most of what has since been said by the advocates of national unity. Twelve years later, when on a visit to England, he published in pamphlet form an essay bearing the same title, and giving his more fully matured views upon the question. If the genesis and enunciation of the Imperial Federation idea in its modern form is to be credited to anyone, it must be assigned to Joseph Howe for this early and comprehensive statement of the main issues involved. The study of the utterances of this great colonist, this champion of colonial rights, may be commended to those shallow critics who profess to believe that the proposal for national unity is an outcome of Imperial selfishness, and that its operation would tend to cramp colonial development.

Mr. Howe had none of the illusions which prevail in some parts of the colonies about the possibility of enjoying peace without taking the steps necessary to secure it: 'We have no security for peace,' he says, 'or if there be any, it is only to be sought in such an organization and armament of the whole Empire as will make the certainty of defeat a foregone conclusion to any foreign power that may attempt to break it.' And again, 'The question of questions for us all, far transcending in importance any other within the range of domestic or foreign politics, is not how the Empire can be most easily dismembered, not how a province {73} or two can be strengthened by a fort, or by the expenditure of a million of dollars, but how the whole Empire can be so organized and strengthened as to command peace or be impregnable in war.'

After discussing the best method of securing the representation of colonial ideas in influencing the general policy of the country, a condition which he believes necessarily precedent to joint expenditure, Mr. Howe then boldly grapples with the question of provision for defence.

'By another bill, to operate uniformly over the whole Empire (India being excepted, as she provides for her own army) the funds should be raised for the national defence. This measure, like the other, should be submitted for the sanction of the colonial governments and legislatures. This tax should be distinguished from all other imposts, that the amount collected could be seen at a glance, and that every portion of the whole people might see what they paid and what every other portion had to pay.

'This fund could either be raised as head money over the whole population, in the form of a property or income tax, or [as Mr. Howe preferred] by a certain percentage upon imports; constituting, next to existing liabilities, a first charge upon colonial revenues, and being paid into the military chest to the credit of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury.'

Two important qualifications Mr. Howe suggests as to the incidence of this national taxation upon the colonies.

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'As the great arsenals, dockyards, depots, and elaborate fortifications are in these islands; as the bulk of the naval and military expenditure for arms, munitions, and provisions occurs here, where are the great fleets and camps, the people of Great Britain and Ireland ought to be prepared to pay, and I have no doubt would, a much larger proportion towards this fund than it would be fair to exact from the outlying provinces, where, in time of peace, there is but little of naval or military expenditure.

'In another respect a wise discrimination should be exercised. Within the British Islands are stored up the fruits of eighteen centuries of profitable industry. All that generations of men toiled for, and have bequeathed, is now in possession of the resident population here, including all that was created and left by the forefathers of those by whom the British colonies have been founded. Taking into view, then, the comparison which these wealthy and densely peopled islands bear to the sparsely populated countries beyond the sea, it would seem but fair that they should assume, in proportion to numbers, a much larger share of the burthens of national defence.'

He then sums up: 'If the general principle be admitted, we need not waste time with the details, which actuaries and accountants can adjust. Fair allowance being made under these two heads, I can see no reason why the colonists should not contribute in peace and war their fair quotas towards the defence of the Empire.

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'But the question may now be asked, and everything turns upon the answer that may be given to it, will the colonies consent to pay this tax, or to make any provision at all for the defence of the Empire? It must be apparent that no individual can give an answer to this question; that the Cabinet, were they to propound this policy, even after the most anxious enquiry and full deliberation, could only wait in hope and confidence for the response to be given by so many communities, so widely dispersed and affected by so many currents of thought. … That it is the duty, and would be for the interest, of all Her Majesty's subjects in the outlying provinces, fairly admitted to the enjoyment of the privileges indicated, to make this contribution, I have not the shadow of doubt. … Without efficient organization they cannot lean upon and strengthen each other or give to the mother-country that moral support which in peace makes diplomacy effective, and in war would make the contest short, sharp, and decisive. … If once organized and consolidated, under a system mutually advantageous and generally known, there would be an end to all jealousies between the taxpayers at home and abroad. We should no longer be weakened by discussions about defence or propositions for dismemberment, and the irritation now kept up by shallow thinkers and mischievous politicians would give place to a general feeling of brotherhood, of confidence, of mutual exertion, dependence, and security. The great powers of Europe and America would at once recognize {76} the wisdom and forethought out of which had sprung this national combination, and they would be slow to test its strength. We should secure peace on every side by the notoriety given to the fact that on every side we were prepared for war.'

One more quotation is necessary to place before the reader the full breadth and courage of Mr. Howe's reasoning:—

'But suppose this policy proposed and the appeal made, and that the response is a determined negative. Even in that case it would be wise to make it, because the public conscience of the mother-country would then be clear, and the hands of her statesmen free, to deal with the whole question of national defence in its broadest outlines or in its bearings on the case of any single province or group of provinces, which might then be dealt with in a more independent manner.

'But I will not for a moment do my fellow-colonists the injustice to suspect that they will decline a fair compromise of a question which involves at once their own protection and the consolidation of the Empire. At all events, if there are any communities of British origin anywhere, who desire to enjoy all the privileges and immunities of the Queen's subjects without paying for and defending them, let us ascertain who and what they are—let us measure the proportions of political expenditure now, in a season of tranquillity, when we have the leisure to gauge the extent of the evil and apply correctives, rather than wait till war finds us {77} unprepared and leaning upon presumptions in which there is no reality.'

No apology seems needed for placing before the reader at such length the views held on this crucial question of national defence by one of the great fathers of Responsible Government in the colonies, a man whose whole life was marked by absolute devotion to the principles of popular government and to colonial interests.

Joseph Howe spoke and wrote of conditions existing before that great period of Canadian development and expenditure which followed upon the confederation of the different provinces. This probably accounts in large measure for the different view of the situation taken and the different solution of the question suggested by his distinguished successor, Sir Charles Tupper. The right and duty of the colonies to contribute to the general strength of the Empire which guarantees them security is admitted as fully by Sir Charles Tupper as by Joseph Howe. Of the most expedient method for utilizing the young energy and growing resources of the colonies he takes a different view. In an article recently published in a leading magazine[1] he says:—

'Many persons, I am aware, both in the colonies and here, have looked upon the question of the defence of the Empire as best promoted and secured by a direct contribution to the support of the army and navy of this country. That I regard as a very {78} mistaken opinion; and I believe that there is a much more effective way of promoting the object in view. In my opinion, no contribution to the support of the army and navy of England on the part of Canada would have contributed to the defence of the Empire in a greater degree than the mode in which the public money in Canada has been expended for that purpose. We have expended, in addition to an enormous grant of land, over a million pounds sterling per annum, from the first hour that we became a united country down to the present day, in constructing a great Imperial highway across Canada from ocean to ocean; not only furnishing the means for the expansion of the trade and the development of Canada, but providing the means of intercommunication at all seasons between different parts of the country,'

After pointing out that the construction of the Transcontinental Railway enabled Canada in 1885 to put down without England's help the half-breed rebellion, while the previous outbreak in 1870 had required the services of General Wolseley and the Imperial troops for several months, Sir Charles Tupper goes on to say:—

'We have, therefore, not only provided the means of intercommunication, the means of carrying on our trade and business, but have also established a great Imperial highway which England might to-morrow find almost essential for the maintenance of her power in the East. Not only has Canada furnished {79} a highway across the continent, but it has brought Yokahama three weeks nearer to London than it is by the Suez Canal. I give that as an illustration that there are other means which, in my judgment, may contribute much more to the increased strength and the greatness of the Empire than any contribution that could be levied upon any of the colonies. … The expenditure by the Government of Canada that has successfully opened up these enormous tracts of country in the great North West of the Dominion, which promise to be the granary of the world, is of itself the best means of making England strong and prosperous, as it will attract a large British population thither.'

Sir Charles Tupper can also speak of more direct contributions which the Dominion makes to the national strength.

'Canada has in addition expended since confederation over forty millions of dollars upon her militia and mounted police, and in the establishment of a military college, which, I am proud to know from one of the highest authorities, is second to no military school in the world, and of nine other military schools and batteries in the various provinces, of which the Dominion is composed. In 1889 Canada expended no less than two millions of dollars on the militia and North West mounted police, which anyone who knows the country will admit is a most effective means of defence. It is true we have a comparatively small permanent force, but {80} we have established military schools, and we have such a nucleus of a further force as in case of need would enable us to develop the militia in the most effective manner, consisting of 37,000 volunteers who are trained annually, and a reserve of 1,000,000 men, liable to be called upon should necessity arise.'

Once more: 'One of the most effective means adopted by the Imperial Parliament for the defence of the Empire is by subsidizing fast steamers built under Admiralty supervision, with armament which can be made available at a moment's notice. These steamers could maintain their position and keep up mail communication in time of war or be used for the transport of troops. Canada has contributed £15,000 a year to a splendid line of steamers, such as I have described, now plying between Canada, Japan, and China, and has offered no less than £165,000 per annum to put a service like the Teutonic between England and Canada, and a fast service between Canada and Australia. All these splendid steamers would be effective as cruisers if required for the protection of British commerce, and the transport of troops and thousands of volunteers to any point that the protection of the Empire demanded.'

It is on grounds thus stated that Sir Charles Tupper concludes that, 'Instead of adding to its defence, the strength of a colony would be impaired by taking away the means which it requires for its development and for increasing its defensive power, {81} if it were asked for a contribution to the army and navy.'

The argument, which may be applied to all the colonies, amounts to this, that it would be true national economy to leave free at present all the energies and resources of these young countries for local defence and for carrying on the mere processes of growth. Obviously the fairness of this arrangement, for which there is much to be said, depends entirely on the assurance that the colony is to remain permanently a part of the Empire. There is no reason why Britain or any other mother-country should bear any part of the natural burdens of a colony if the colony is, nevertheless, left free to mark its adolescence by declaring itself independent, or by annexing itself to another and perhaps rival state. It is equally obvious that such an arrangement could in no sense be final; and that it only shifts the question of more normal adjustment of national burdens to a time not very far remote. It could therefore in any case only be looked upon as a temporary compromise. For instance, the whole volume of colonial trade (including India) is to that of the United Kingdom now in about the proportion of four to seven: judging from the relative rate of increase before referred to the day is not far distant when they will be equal. The proportion of population is also changing rapidly. The anomaly of one half of the national trade and one half of the population bearing the direct naval expenditure of the {82} whole would be very great indeed. This method, too, would seem to conflict rather seriously with a principle which has become a very fundamental idea in the British mind, viz. that a bearing of burdens in some very direct form must go hand in hand with representation. Till direct responsibility in general defence is undertaken, direct representation in determining general policy can scarcely be conceded. To fix the point at which any colony should become a direct instead of an indirect contributor to the nation's defensive strength would be a manifest necessity. To these criticisms Sir Charles Tupper can fairly answer that he deals in his proposition only with actual and not with prospective conditions. In fixing new and permanent relations, however, for an empire which is changing as rapidly as ours, the future must be kept in view as much as the present. Doubtless the true settlement of the question lies in a compromise between the present and the future.

Not long since one of the most prominent of English statesmen put the matter to me in this way: 'We in Great Britain know very well that while you in the colonies are engaged in organizing great continents and furnishing them with the machinery of civilization we cannot expect you to contribute for common purposes in proportion to us, who start with the stored up resources and appliances of centuries. But we know that as you complete your docks, harbours and lighthouses, your railroads and canals, your schoolhouses and churches, as society becomes {83} settled and the needs of civilization supplied, then you will gradually become ready and willing to bear your full proportion of those burdens which are the token of full and equal citizenship.' With him, as with Joseph Howe, the settlement of the central principle of national unity was the main point; the determination of the details of expenditure was a matter for friendly negotiation—for actuaries and accountants.

We may now ask, as did Joseph Howe, whether the great colonies would be willing to accept, either immediately or by gradual and progressive steps, any further share in the responsibilities of the nation. It may be assumed that this decision will be based on the facts and arguments of the case.

'Reason shows and experience proves that no commercial prosperity can be durable if it cannot be united, in case of need, to naval force.' This remark of De Tocqueville is so fully proved by the facts of history that its truth may be accepted as axiomatic. It is a truth for the colonies to consider. Highly commercial already, their desire and manifest destiny are to be still more so. Canada's commercial navy, as has been said, already ranks fourth in the world. She is a first-class shipping power. Australia's trade is perhaps greater in proportion to population than that of any other country. Alone among all the people of the past or present, British colonists have not had to accept the full responsibilities of increasing commercial greatness. The {84} little republic of Chili, with a trade of £26,000,000, and a population of about 3,000,000 maintains 40,000 tons of armed shipping, at a large annual expense. The other republics of South America bear like burdens. Australia, with its much larger volume of sea trade and far greater of revenue, pays only £126,000 for naval defence, strictly confined to its own shores. Canada, with its remarkable tonnage of ocean shipping, its great interests at stake on its eastern and western coasts, leans almost entirely for defence of commerce and fisheries upon British ironclads paid for exclusively by the people of the United Kingdom.

The deceptive argument, drawn from the example of the United States at some periods of their history, that a degree of isolation gives immunity from such burdens, has now lost its force. The policy of the Great Republic has been sharply reversed, and the creation of a powerful navy has become an object of national ambition, and is apparently the outcome of national necessities developed by the widening of commercial relations.

Judged, then, by all historical precedent, the great colonies must in the natural course of events accept naval defence as a part of their ordinary burdens. That they have escaped this form of expense hitherto is manifestly due almost entirely to the fact that as parts of the empire they have been so fortunate as to enjoy without cost the protection of a supreme naval power. Will they secure the most effective defence, the best return for the money they spend, within the {85} Empire or without? Within the Empire they would have the advantage of naval bases in every important corner of the world. The portion of force contributed by themselves would have the prestige of the whole to make it most effective. They would have the advantage of all the stored-up skill and experience of the greatest school of naval training that the world has ever known. They would have the direction of naval experience absolutely unique. They would be able at once in spending their money to avail themselves of the best results of naval experiments carried on by the United Kingdom at enormous cost. Alike in cheapness and efficiency they would enjoy the advantages which come from co-operation on a great scale.

There is, of course, an opposing view. Stated in its extreme form it was put thus, three or four years ago, to the Legislature of Quebec by Mr. Mercier:—

'Up to the present time we have lived a colonial life, but today they wish us to assume, in spite of ourselves, the responsibilities and dangers of a sovereign state, which will not be ours. They seek to expose us to vicissitudes of peace and war against the great powers of the world; to rigorous exigencies of military service as practised in Europe; to disperse our sons from the freezing regions of the North Pole to the burning sands on the desert of Sahara; an odious regime which will condemn us to the forced impost of blood and money, and wrest from our arms out sons, who are the hope of our country and {86} the consolation of our old days, and send them off to bloody and distant wars, which we shall not be able to stop or prevent.'

Probably Mr. Mercier's auditors were well enough acquainted with history to detect at once the obvious fallacy of his argument.

Still, it is worth while to remind colonial writers and speakers when they assert, as they sometimes do, that a union of defence with Britain means the dragging away of Canadians or Australians to fight in Europe or Asia, that Britain is the one country in the world that has never, in modern times, been compelled to resort to conscription; that no one is asked to fight in the ranks of her army or in her fleet except those who wish to, and that on these terms she has been able to put into the field and on the sea all the soldiers and sailors she requires. This is as true of her large native Indian armies as it is of her English, Scotch, Welsh, or Irish regiments. Britain knows nothing of the conscription which prevails in Germany, France, and Russia, which even the United States found necessary in the War of Secession. The men whom Australia sent to the Soudan she sent of her own accord, and not at Britain's request, much less her command; the numerous Canadian officers now holding commissions and in the active service of the Empire are there by their own individual choice. There is not the slightest reason to suppose that the British system of a purely voluntary service would be changed under any new political conditions imposed {87} by closer union. The career of a soldier is one which has for many minds a great attraction. With the progress of military science, it now offers in many of its departments, as never before, a field for the highest intellectual qualities and scientific attainments. To say the very least, to be a defender of one's country is a not unworthy ambition. It is therefore extremely likely that into the great career offered by an Imperial service many colonists with military predilections would be drawn. Even if their sole object were to prepare themselves for the service of the particular part of the Empire to which they belonged, the wider training to be obtained in the highly organized system of a great state would be invaluable. But once more I repeat that the service would be purely voluntary. If Mr. Mercier and those of his compatriots who think with him have lost what was once supposed to be an instinct of their race, they have the opportunity within the British Empire, which they could not depend upon having in France, of following their inclination. Mr. Goldwin Smith states, though I think incorrectly, that colonists are essentially non-military. If his view is true, then the task of defending the Empire will naturally gravitate into the hands of those in whom the military instinct is strong, of whom the Empire has always as yet found enough for all its needs.

Again, in a somewhat similar connection Mr. Smith speaks of 'the heavy weight of a constant liability to entanglements in the quarrels of England all over the {88} world, with which Canada has nothing to do, and about which nothing is known by her people. Her commerce may any day be cut up and want brought into her homes by a war about the frontier of Afghanistan, about the treatment of Armenia or Crete by the Turks, about the relation of the Danubian Principalities to Russia, or about the balance of power in Europe.' Let us put against this flight of imagination the solid facts of history and see if Canada has had any reason to feel this pressure of dread from her connection with Britain. In 1812 British troops assisted Canadians in repelling what Mr. Smith himself describes as 'unprincipled aggression.' Since that time under the British flag Canada has known a continuance of peace absolutely without parallel for a corresponding' period among all the nations of the world. The last European war in which England took part was that with Russia, closed in 1856. The effect upon Canada of that war was a stimulus given to her timber and provision trade by the closing of Baltic and Black Sea ports. One of Canada's own sons, General Williams, the hero of Kars, won in that war a fame of which every Canadian is proud. Since 1856 there has been an Austro-Italian war, an Austro-Prussian war, a Franco-Prussian war, a Russo-Turkish war. No British sword was drawn, no Canadian interest touched in all of these. The gigantic civil war of secession shook the American union to its foundations; Britain took no part, and Canadians along with her lived in peace. In India {89} Britain was compelled in 1856-7 to go through a strain of agony and effort to maintain her place of power. Canada's sole part was to weep at the fate, to glory in the heroism of those who suffered or who won at Lucknow, Cawnpore, Delhi, and a hundred other scenes of conflict. With England's numerous petty wars with barbarian tribes on the fringe of advancing civilization, mostly undertaken in behalf of colonists, Canada has had nothing to do[2]. When she had her first half-breed rebellion British troops were promptly sent to put it down. So far, then, Canada has not had 'want brought into her homes' through her connection with Britain, but on the contrary has enjoyed a peace and security that might well be the envy of the world. Like the United States, Canada enjoys the advantage of isolation from European strife, together with the further advantage of connection {90} with a power whose flag gives to Canadian ships and commerce on every ocean the surest guarantee of safety at present existing in the world; a guarantee the importance and significance of which will increase with the growth of Canadian commerce; a guarantee which she could not possibly find under an independent flag, nor yet under the flag of the United States, whose one weakness, by the admission of American authorities themselves, lies in the want of those naval bases which are everywhere the necessary adjuncts of extended maritime security.

But even when the extraordinary immunity from the risks of war which the colonies have enjoyed under the British flag has been demonstrated it seems well to give due weight to any honest objection which exists to committing themselves entirely to the military policy of the Empire at large, until, at least, the sense of national unity has had time to become fully developed. That the colonies will refuse to contribute to Imperial defence, as is sometimes asserted, I do not believe, and facts are themselves now beginning to disprove the statement. That they may contribute enormously to the national strength without offending the prejudices of even the most sensitive may also be shown. Lord Thring has made a suggestion upon this point which seems to me exceedingly interesting and helpful. After pointing out the overwhelming common interest which all parts of the Empire have in resisting attack from without, he proposes that in each of the great colonies willing {91} to enter into the arrangement defensive forces should be created which would be recognized parts of the Imperial army and navy. These forces should not primarily be under a compulsory obligation to serve out of their own countries, or beyond their own limits, but when called out for Imperial purposes within their limits they should form a part of the Imperial army and navy, and be under the same general control. But the colonial forces should be empowered to volunteer for the common national service out of their own limits, and on so doing they should be regarded as an integral part of the nation's defensive force.

A national military and naval organization such as that here suggested would appeal directly to that local patriotism, instinctive in all, which considers no sacrifice too great if it is made for the defence of men's own homes and firesides; it furnishes the opportunity for that wider national patriotism which knows that the safety of the parts depends upon the safety of the whole; and it meets the objection which has been mentioned before, and is often made, to young communities being compelled against their will to take an active part outside their own borders in wars in which their concern is only indirect. The actual defensive force of the Empire would be immensely increased by the effective organization of each part under a common direction, a necessity so often and strenuously insisted upon by Sir Charles Dilke and others who have thought and written upon national defence; its contingent force would be still {92} more increased in the event of a war which appeals to the reason and sympathy of the several great communities.

Those who argue for separation in the colonies, as well as men like the late Mr. Bright at home, rest their case largely upon the view that the mother-country carries permanently along with her the entanglements of a traditional foreign policy which is chiefly European, and with which it is unfair to involve young communities in parts of the world remote from Europe[3]. This view seems based on past history more than on the facts of the present. More and more every day Britain tends to become a world power, and it is this fact rather than her European position which dominates her policy. She faces Europe much more in the interest of her colonies than in the support of ancient traditions. We have only to read the news from day to day, or the summary of national policy for a year as it is presented in a Queen's Speech, to see that Lord Salisbury was within the strict limit of fact when he told a deputation but a few months since that his work in the Foreign Office had made him {93} deeply sensible of 'the large portion of our foreign negotiations, our foreign difficulties, and the danger of foreign complications which arise entirely from our colonial connections; and the effect is that from time to time we have to exercise great vigilance lest we should incur dangers which do not arise from any interest of our own, but arise entirely from the interests of the important and interesting communities to which we are linked.'

The difficulty with the United States in the Behring Sea and the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and with the French in Newfoundland; the complicated negotiations with Germany, Portugal, and other powers, European and native, in Africa, chiefly entered into in behalf of colonies or colonizing companies, are, to take the very latest illustrations, quite sufficient to give definiteness to Lord Salisbury's statement[4].

To some sincere thinkers in the colonies the value of British protection seems slight compared with the risks entailed by the Imperial connection. They believe that the true and evident policy for these young countries is to break off this connection and so free {94} themselves from its dangers. Having no reason to quarrel with anybody they anticipate with independence not only the immunity which they have enjoyed from war, but the further relief from the fear of war. Commerce carried on without naval protection; internal safety secured without expense on military organization; a neutral flag respected by all belligerents; the settlement of all differences by friendly arbitration, seem to them not unreasonable expectations.

The dread of some Englishmen, on the other hand, is that they may be drawn into wars in which they have no direct interest by the action of individual colonies.

Each of these opinions has some superficial ground of justification; each process of reasoning has, if pushed to its final conclusions, fatal defects. But is there not reason to believe that the growth of the Empire is bringing us to a point when the policy of England and her colonies may be entirely coincident on the great questions of peace or war?

In the desperate struggle for existence which England in past centuries has often had to carry on, in those contests which have toughened the fibre of her children and fitted them to be of the ruling races of the world, she has often had to make combinations or enter into agreements with the European nations around her from which she would gladly have kept herself free. But with the spread of the Empire abroad England is every day becoming more able {95} to look away from Europe, to stand aloof from purely European disputes, and to secure all the strength she requires from combination with communities which are her own offspring.

Such an outcome of the nation's life would be the best justification for all that England has suffered and spent in building up the Empire. But it is not for colonists to forget that she has spent and suffered much.

At Melbourne two years ago, in a lecture intended to refute the arguments for British unity, and to point out the danger to Australia of remaining connected with the Empire, Sir Archibald Michie, with great apparent deliberation, said: 'As the miserable result of her (England's) past foreign policy, as ineffectual to any good purpose as it has proved expensive, she is indebted to the amount of some £700,000,000 to the public creditor, the National Debt. To what an extent does not this one miserable fact, so disgusting to all Chancellors of the Exchequer, cripple the strength and movements of the mother-country, and weaken her influence with the world at large.' Were this the thought of a single man it would be scarce worth while to recall it. But in some of the colonies similar reference to the National Debt is found not infrequently in journals which must be taken seriously, and in the mouths of men who influence public opinion. Often it is emphasized by a triumphant allusion to the different application of colonial borrowings, represented as they are by assets in the form of railways, canals, harbour improvements, {96} telegraph systems, and public works of many kinds. The criticism and comparison seem misleading in the last degree.

We may make a liberal allowance for mistakes in British foreign policy. We may criticise things done in the heat of national passion, or at times when Britain was carrying on a struggle for existence. We may leave out of our reckoning the glory of having saved the liberties of Europe when other nations were yielding in despair, when British subsidies alone brought their armies into the field, and British resolution inspired them with new courage. Yet, when all this allowance has been made, we may say that a colonist is perhaps the last man in the world to sneer at the public debt of England. She came out of the prolonged and tremendous struggle which piled up her debt possessing as an asset to show for it about one-fifth of the known world. Professor Seeley has proved conclusively that England's great continental wars, the chief causes of her vast expenditures, were in large measure contests for colonial supremacy. From those wars she gained the power to give Canada to the Canadians, Australia to the Australians, vast areas and limitless resources in many lands to those of her people who have gone to inhabit them, and so to complete by industry the conquest begun by arms. From those wars she emerged with a command of the sea which has enabled her to supplement her gift of territory with a guarantee of safety which has secured it from attack during the early stages of settlement until the {97} present time. The National Debt would seem to be a natural mortgage upon the territories acquired by war expenditure, yet the gift of Crown lands which was made to the colonies acquiring responsible government was made absolutely free from this mortgage. These Crown lands in all the colonies are sold and used entirely for local benefit, while the whole incidence of taxation for what may fairly be called the interest of the purchase-money falls upon the United Kingdom alone.

The expense of the great expeditions which culminated in the victory on the Plains of Abraham is a considerable item in the National Debt, but half a continent now held by Canadians is no insignificant item to set against it. If the expenditure for the American War be put down as a mistake, it must be remembered that the United States themselves, no less than Canada, reaped the advantage from the previous expenditure which set the Anglo-Saxon on the American continent free from French rivalry[5].

Fifty years ago the French Government asked the British Foreign Office how much of the vast unoccupied {98} areas of Australia it claimed. 'The whole of it,' was the prompt reply. No doubt the recollection of the Plains of Abraham, of Trafalgar, of Waterloo, had something to do with the acceptance of that reply as conclusive.

If the colonies are able to expend their borrowings on reproductive works alone, this advantage is not entirely due to their own superior prudence, but in part at least to the circumstance that they have been protected by a great Imperial power not afraid to go into debt for national ends. Gibraltar and Malta, Aden, Singapore, and Hong Kong, the Cape and St. Helena, stations in every corner of the world for the protection of the commerce of the colonies as much as that of the United Kingdom, are the best answers to those who sneer at the National Debt of Great Britain.

The United States incurred a war debt of more than 2000,000,000 dollars, not indeed in carrying out a foreign policy, right or wrong, but in remedying mistakes of internal policy. The war brought no vast addition of territory; it simply saved the state from disruption. No one doubts that the expenditure has been more than repaid by the national unity and greatness which it secured. But the very people who were crushed by that vast outlay have been obliged, since they remain within the nation, to contribute to the payment of the debt incurred.

They are obliged to contribute their share of the vast pension roll, amounting to much more than 100,000,000 dollars per annum, paid to the soldiers of the Union {99} who crushed them. Compared with this, the magnanimity of the mother-land in handing over to her younger communities, absolutely free from incumbrance either of mortgage, of military responsibility, or of commercial restraint, the major part of those vast assets which she had to show for her national debt, seems to me amazing. A colonist, reproaching England with her foreign policy and the debt which it led to, cuts a sorry figure in the face of these facts. And if we put the £30,000,000 added to the debt of England in order to extinguish slavery beside the price paid by the United States for the same national purification, we shall discover reasons for thinking that there may be national mistakes worse than those to be discovered in the foreign policy of Britain.

Sir Charles Dilke says[6]: 'It is a remarkable instance of past Imperial carelessness that the very principles upon which the burden of defence should be divided between ourselves and colonies, and the proportions in which it should be borne, have never been settled.'

And again[7]: 'It is not the United Kingdom only but the whole British Empire which needs consistent and united organization for defence. The colonies should be represented on our great General Staff, and the principle of self-preservation, applied to the Empire, should be disentangled from the petty {100} political questions by which the relations between the mother-country and her children are often hampered and sometimes embittered. … Unfortunately, considerations of Imperial defence, which should be regarded from the point of view of common self-interest, are apt to become mixed up with the individual and fleeting interests of various portions of the Empire. If, as I hope, we are to continue to stand together as a confederacy holding the future of the greater portion of the world in its hands, the inhabitants of the home islands and of the colonies must come to an understanding for mutual support during the crisis of civilization in which we may find ourselves at any moment.'

I have often had occasion to quote Sir Charles Dilke's opinions on questions which have come within the range of this discussion. The luminous and exhaustive statement of the condition and resources of the Empire contained in the two volumes of the 'Problems of Greater Britain,' though somewhat weighted by detail, and in my opinion weakened by an imperfect balancing of the primary and secondary forces at work in the colonies, is still by far the most valuable contribution yet made to the study of our national position. The line of argument by which the author proves the necessity for closer defensive organization of the different parts of the Empire seems to me overwhelming in its conclusiveness. His demand that the colonies should be represented on the General Staff which is to constitute the {101} brain of the nation in military questions, his impressive warnings that the mother-land and colonies must stand side by side in protecting the commerce and civilization which both have borne a part in building up, make it very difficult to understand the hesitating and irresolute attitude which he takes in his chapter (vol. ii. part vii.) on 'Future Relations' to the question of Federation, or any defined system of political union. Military combination, even for defensive purposes alone, must certainly mean a common foreign policy and the joint expenditure which is necessary to make it effective; a common foreign policy and expenditure imply some means of giving adequate expression to the will of all the communities concerned; and to most minds that, I think, will point directly and inevitably to some form of common representation. Military authorities may plan and advise, but under any British system of government political authorities who derive their mandate directly from the citizens can alone make the plan effective. Mere alliance could never accomplish all that the author of the 'Problems of Greater Britain' believes essential to the safety of the Empire. Alliance is temporary and easily revocable, and therefore by no means a settlement of permanent national questions. The moment that an attempt is made to remedy the carelessness complained of, to settle the principles upon which the burden of defence is to be divided between the mother-land and colonies, 'to come to an understanding for mutual support,' it will be found {102} that immediately behind the military problem is the political problem[8].

[1] Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1891.

[2] While these pages are going through the press there comes, as if to qualify what is here said, the news that a young Canadian, Captain William H. Robinson, of the Royal Engineers, has met a soldier's death while leading, with conspicuous courage, an attack on Tambi in Sierra Leone. Trained in Canadian schools, and graduated with the highest honours from the Canadian Military College at Kingston, he had steadily pushed his way forward in the Imperial service and had for some time been in charge of the important fortifications in course of construction at Sierra Leone. In the ardent pursuit of his profession he had specially volunteered for the service on which he was engaged when he met his end. As his teacher I had occasion to watch over the early development of his very exceptional powers. Britain has, first and last, sacrificed many precious lives on Canadian soil, but in Captain Robinson Canada has begun to repay the debt to the mother-land with one of the most promising of the sons she has yet produced.

[3] 'I should like to ask the friends of federation whether the colonies of this country—Canada, and the great colonies which cluster in the South Pacific and in Australia—whether these colonies would be willing to bind themselves to the stupid and regrettable foreign policy of the Government of this country? Will they take the responsibility of entering into wars which will be 10,000 miles away, and in which they can have no possible interest or influence, and in which they could have been in no degree consulted as to the cost? My opinion is that the colonies will never stand a policy of that kind.'—John Bright at Birmingham, March 28th, 1888.

[4] A Liberal Foreign Minister has lately expressed the same thought in other words. 'Our great Empire has pulled us, so to speak, by the coat-tails out of the European system; and though with our great predominance, our great moral influence, and our great fleet, with our traditions in Europe and our aspirations to preserve the peace of Europe, we can never remove ourselves altogether from the European system, we must recognise that our foreign policy has become a colonial policy, and is in reality at this moment much more dictated from the extremities of the empire than it is from London itself.'—Lord Rosebery to the City Liberal Club, March 23rd, 1892.

[5] American writers admit this, 'The Seven Years' War made England what she is. It crippled the commerce of her rival, ruined France in two continents, and blighted her as a colonial power. It gave England the control of the seas, and the mastery of North America and India, made her the first of commercial nations, and prepared the vast colonial system that has planted New Englands in every part of the globe. And while it made England what she is it supplied to the United States the indispensable condition of their greatness, if not of their national existence:—Introduction to Montcalm and Wolfe (Parkman).

[6] Problems of Greater Britain, vol. ii. 522.

[7] United Service Magazine, April, 1890.

[8] Since the above was written a very distinct advance of thought on the question of British unity has been indicated in the work on 'Imperial Defence,' just published by Sir Charles Dilke and Mr. Spencer Wilkinson. The authors say (p. 54): 'It is enough to say, that the great question, perhaps the greatest question, which has to be answered by the present generation of Englishmen, is whether the British Empire is to become a series of independent, though, perhaps, friendly states, or to make a reality of the military unity which at the present time is rather a sentiment than a practical institution. It is evidently impossible to organise the defences of the Empire until this prior question has been settled, and it is quite impossible until it has been faced to determine properly the policy of Great Britain. If the principle of the unity of the Empire and the unity of its defences is maintained the greatest conceivable degree of security would have been gained for the whole and for every part, and the British Empire could afford, as against the attack, of any single power, to steer clear of all alliances and to pursue a policy solely to the immediate welfare of its subjects. … Before, then, the defence of the British Empire can be placed throughout on a permanently satisfactory footing, it seems necessary that the great political question of the century should be settled, and that Englishmen all over the world should make up their minds as to the real nature of Greater Britain.' The most ardent Federationist could not wish for a more succinct statement of the national position than this.

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CHAPTER IV.

THE UNITED KINGDOM.

To understand the relation of the United Kingdom to the question of national unity we must try to grasp the main features of the astonishing and unparalleled change which in the last half or three quarters of a century has come over the industrial condition of the British Islands. This change has left them in a position absolutely unique among the nations of the present day, a position, moreover, to which history furnishes no parallel.

It has been estimated that when the Queen came to the throne, of the working population of the country one-third were agricultural labourers, and one-third were artizans. There has since been an addition of from 12,000,000 to 15,000,000 to the whole population, and at the end of this period of remarkable growth we find ourselves face to face with the overwhelming fact that of all the working classes of Great Britain only an eighth are agricultural labourers while three-fourths are artizans. What this means is in no way more tersely described than when we say that Britain has become the workshop of the {104} world. What it involves is the conclusion that never in the history of the human race has any great nation lived under such artificial conditions as do British people at the end of this period of extraordinary industrial development, a period which has its limit well within the century. All the circumstances of national existence have been revolutionized.

After the application to the soil of intense culture, of scientific skill, of abundant capital, of cheap labour, only about 8,000,000 or 9,000,000 quarters of wheat are produced out of the 28,000,000 quarters which now represent the annual consumption. The rest comes from the far distant prairies of the United States and Canada, from India, South Australia, New Zealand, the Black Sea and the Baltic. With other cereals it is the same, the demand for those which cannot be produced at all in Great Britain, such as rice and maize, being immense.

Cheap ocean freights, which make it possible to transfer a bushel of wheat by sea from Montreal or New York to London at a lower price than it can be carried by rail from some English counties to London, handicap the English producer still more. It seems as if the dependence upon the outside world for grain supplies were likely to increase, not merely with the rapid increase of population which is still going on, but with the necessity of applying the land to more profitable forms of production as ocean transit is still further cheapened, and as increasing prosperity leads to a greater consumption of animal food.

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As with grain foods so with meat. Hundreds of thousands of live cattle, many hundred thousand tons of meat, chilled, frozen, salted, or tinned, pour into the country every year from across the sea. Canada alone last year sent 123,000 head of cattle; New Zealand nearly 1,500,000 frozen carcasses of sheep. It has been estimated that the quantity of meat food in the United Kingdom at any time is only sufficient to supply the market for three months; beyond that all must come from without.

So also with cheese, fruit, and other staple articles of consumption. Still more striking is the dependence on distant lands for a wide range of articles once esteemed luxuries, but now reckoned among the comforts, if not the necessities, of daily life, such as sugar, tea, and coffee. If the massing of facts into figures best conveys to some minds the nature of the situation it may be put in the statement that every year the United Kingdom pays for articles used for food brought from abroad the sum of £153,000,000 sterling. Or it may be better illustrated by a comparison. Draw around almost any other nation or country of modern times—Germany, Italy, Russia, the United States, Canada, Australia—a barrier preventing the ingress of any food supply from the outer world. There will be inconvenience, some measure of restriction of consumption in a few particulars, but the condition is one which could be endured not merely for months but for years. Place a like barrier around the British Islands and {106} in six weeks the pressure of want will begin to be felt; in six months starvation will be the prevalent condition of the population.

Such a picture is, of course, imaginary—the fact which lies behind it is stern reality.

The illustration emphasizes, but does not exaggerate, the absolutely unique nature of the national position.

For the first time in the course of human history we have had in the last half century presented to us in the British Islands the spectacle of a great people depending for its existence upon the safe and continuous transport from the most remote corners of the globe of about two-thirds of the chief articles of daily consumption.

That the outlook of such a people upon the world should differ fundamentally from that of any other people of past times or of the present day is manifest. What has been said is not meant to prove that the situation is one which should necessarily induce extraordinary anxiety. Difficulties are to be measured by the resources at hand to grapple with them. Danger only comes when the sense of proportion between the two is lost.

Food is not all. Britain the workshop of the world, and three-fourths of its working population artizans! Upon what do these vast armies of industry, these millions of working men and women, spend their toil to earn the wages that buy the food thus brought to them from such great distances and at {107} such expense? Once more we find the ends of the earth scoured to furnish them with the raw material upon which they work. Wool from Australia, New Zealand, India, Africa, South America; cotton from the Southern States, India, Egypt; timber from Canada, Russia, Scandinavia, Honduras; precious metals, ores, jute, hemp and other fibres, oils, gums, ivory, shells, hides, furs, precious stones—everything that can be moulded for use or beauty, all productions of land and sea, are poured forth day by day from the holds of a thousand ships in the greater ports of the United Kingdom to be transferred to the centres of British industry.

The critical character of this dependence for a perfectly steady supply of raw material is under modern conditions as striking as the extent of the dependence. The great Yorkshire woollen spinners tell us that to be cut off even for three or four weeks from the supplies of Australian wool would mean the closing of hundreds or thousands of factories and a widespread paralysis of industry. They point out that when the regularity of sea transport depended upon wind and weather, or when the home market supplied a larger share of the material, common prudence made it necessary to lay in heavy stocks to provide against contingencies for many months. So fixed has now become the habit of depending upon the regular arrival of ocean steam-ships from week to week, the regular sequence of great wool sales at frequent stated periods, that it is possible {108} in manufacturing to live as it were from hand to mouth; that, as a matter of fact, a large proportion of manufacturers do so live, purchasing only enough for their immediate wants, and renewing their stock at very short intervals. Thus the effect of any stoppage of sea-transport would be disastrously felt at once, reaching in its influence alike the manufacturing capitalist and the workman in his cottage.

A group of manufacturers at Galashiels, one of the important Scottish centres of the wool trade, told me that nine out of every ten pounds of wool they used was Australian. The proportion can scarcely be less in the Bradford district and other large areas of Yorkshire. Nor are such illustrations of the completeness of dependence on supplies abroad exceptional or confined to wool. Cut off Dundee from its importations of Indian jute and the collapse of its main industry would be sudden and general. Lancashire is not likely to forget what it means to lose control of her ordinary markets for obtaining raw cotton. We may put together once more the figures which express this marvellous relation to British industry to the remoter parts of the world.

For wool last year Britain paid £26,000,000; for raw cotton £40,000,000; wood £14,000,000; metals £23,000,000; flax, hemp, and jute £10,000,000; and so on.

But even what has been said of food and raw material of manufacture exhibits but one side of the national position. To be the workshop of the world {109} implies access to the markets of the world. I say nothing of the vast centres of commerce abroad which serve as the main points of distribution. But go to the loneliest Australian or New Zealand bush; to the backwoods and remote prairies of Canada; to distant South African gold and diamond diggings, and we find the shelves of the humblest shop filled with the products of the looms of Yorkshire, Lancashire, or Paisley, of the factories everywhere scattered throughout the United Kingdom where the vast inflow of raw material is worked up. To foreign countries, as well as to those inhabited by British people, to every civilized or uncivilized continent, district, or island, however remote, these manufactures penetrate, and must continue to penetrate, if the vast fabric of British industry is to be maintained.

Once more, the figures which represent the annual aggregate of export trade are immense: cotton goods £70,000,000; woollen goods £26,000,000; iron and steel £28,000,000; machinery £ 13,000,000.

Between this great inflow of raw material and food, and the equally great output of manufactured goods, has sprung up yet another prime factor in Britain's industrial position, her shipping interests. She has become by far the greatest of ocean carriers. It is not merely that scores of millions of capital are invested in ships alone; that 60 per cent. of all the steam tonnage of the world and a large proportion of its sailing tonnage are under the British flag; that tens of thousands of men find employment {110} upon the seas, and tens of thousands more in the immediate handling of ships and their cargoes around British harbours and docks. The mere construction of ships and their equipment for this vast carrying trade gives an impulse to almost every form of British industry. The shipyards of the Clyde alone turn out at times a thousand tons or more of iron or steel shipping for every working day of the year. The vast aggregate for the whole country forms a large element in the industrial life of the nation.

Here, then, in roughest outline, is a picture of the unique position which the British Islands hold in the world today. Let us remind ourselves once more that the extreme singularity of this situation has been created well within the span of an ordinary life, for the sea-borne commerce of the United Kingdom, which today has an annual value of more than £740,000,000, was, when the Queen came to the throne in 1837, only £155,000,000. The difference between these figures fairly measures the increased dependence of the country upon its imports, exports, and the carrying trade.

Now for a nation existing under conditions such as have been described, where the work and wages and food of the masses of the people depend on easy and constant access to the remotest corners of the globe, it seems possible to indicate what must be the end and aim of national policy—the supreme objects of statesmanship. Surely the first object must be to {111} secure the absolute safety for trading purposes of the water-ways of the world.

Maritime security Britain is bound to maintain, if she is to retain manufacturing superiority. The only manufacturing rival which seriously threatens her is the United States. It is a friendly rivalry, and should remain such. But each country, with what advantages it has, will play relentlessly for its own hand, and for the welfare, real or supposed, of its own people. Britain carries on the contest by means of Free Trade, thereby cheapening production, and winning the market of the world. The United States use for their weapon Protection, stimulating production till it becomes cheap. Britain also, under this opposing condition, depends for food and material on the outside world—the United States have the food and most of the material within themselves. The first serious break in Britain's power to hold the waterways of the world would place her at a fatal disadvantage. Safe in a continental isolation the United States could supply the customers who came to her for manufactured goods with what they wanted. To be on even terms Britain must have maritime security, and this she could not have if by the successive cutting away of her great outlying offshoots she should lose control of those points of vantage which now are the secret of her supremacy quite as much as the ships which she sends forth from her dockyards.

Second only to maritime security seems to me the necessity for a country in the position of Great Britain {112} to keep as far as possible the sources from which she draws her food and raw material within the national domain.

Great Britain has had at least one sharp reminder of the advantage which would accrue to a country so dependent as she is on the outside world of having the areas of production under the national flag. This reminder was one which gave a rough shock to the generally accepted theory that if the consumer wants to buy and the producer wants to sell, all the conditions for satisfactory commercial intercourse between countries are fulfilled without reference to national relationship. In 1865 the War of Secession broke out in America, and the ports of the cotton-producing states were blockaded. Millions of bales of cotton were wasting on the wharves and in the warehouses at New Orleans, Charleston, and other Southern towns. On the other hand, in Lancashire millions of spindles were idle, and vast bodies of people were reduced to extreme need or thrown for a long period upon the charity of the benevolent from want of the raw material of their industry. The producers certainly wished to sell, the consumers to purchase. English manufacturers had money with which to buy—English shippers had the vessels to carry—the English Government had the men-of-war which could easily have forced a way to the supplies which were needed. Between was the barrier of international law and national honour, which forbid a neutral nation to interfere with belligerents. The barrier was respected, {113} and England passed triumphantly through the moral strain involved in resisting the temptation to go to war for an industrial end alone. The lesson to be learned from such an example appears manifest. The retention of the national right to keep open the communication between the centre of consumption and the areas of supply is alike desirable for the industry of the one and of the other. To give an obvious illustration. The vast woollen industries of Yorkshire are supplied almost exclusively from regions now within the Empire—New Zealand, Australia, India, and South Africa. So long as these countries remain under a common British flag the working man who produces the wool and the working man who spins it retain the national right to keep their industries in touch with each other: the moment they pass out from under the flag that right is given up. Great Britain would have no more right to force her way into the ports of an independent Australia or New Zealand, blockaded by a German, French, or Chinese fleet, than she had to force her way into the harbours of Louisiana or South Carolina. The neutral flag may furnish a way of escape for Britain's industry when she is herself in direct conflict with another power; it gives no assistance when a nation with which she is at peace chooses to close the ports of a country from which she draws her food or the material of her industry. The reader will find that the illustration is a far-reaching one if he extends it to the whole range of Britain's wants either for supply or for markets for her manufactured {114} goods; and to the whole range of colonial necessity for a market for their staple products, and a supply of what they do not produce.

Still more significant is the illustration if he remember that as regards food supply the Empire might, in an emergency, soon become entirely independent of foreign countries, while, with the single exception of cotton, we could tide over an indefinite period even in the matter of raw material for manufacture.

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CHAPTER V.

CANADA.

WHEN we come to regard our question from the colonial point of view the first place in any consideration must obviously be given to Canada. The national problem is there presented to us in a crucial form. The growth and consolidation of the Dominion have done more than anything else to make manifest the anomalous condition of the Empire. In it we have a colony with a population twice as large as the United States had when they became independent, larger than that of England in Elizabeth's time, or than that of some considerable European States at the present day. It is a population which has proved itself equal to the highest duties of citizenship. The slowness of earlier growth has not been without advantage, since it has unquestionably given steadiness and maturity to political thought. With comparative suddenness Canada has now caught the inspiration of a large national life. Vast undertakings in the direction of material progress are entered upon with confidence and executed with success. On political lines her people have been the first to prove by actual experiment {116} on a large scale the adaptability of a federal system to British methods of representative and responsible government. Since confederation was entered into nearly twenty-five years ago self-reliance has become the keynote of Canadian life and has produced its legitimate and ordinary results. In material development, in political organization, in the spirit of the people, the Dominion has reached the stage looked forward to by early thinkers on colonial problems as the one at which it might reasonably be expected to assume an independent national existence. It must therefore soon bring to the test the theories of these thinkers as to the results of national expansion.

The position of Canada is made unique among British colonies by another condition. She is so placed geographically that annexation to another kindred state is a manifestly possible alternative to either independence or continued British connection. Whether independence, annexation to the United States, or a closer and permanent union with the Empire is most consistent with the honour and interest of the Canadian people, and whether the separation of Canada from the Empire is a matter of indifference to the British nation at large, are questions to be here discussed.

Facts of geography, facts of history, and questions of trade relations, must enter chiefly into the consideration.

There is an advantage in giving the first place to geography.

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A glance at the map shows the relation of Canada to the Oceanic Empire of which it now forms a part. It fronts towards Europe on the Atlantic and towards Asia on the Pacific. On both oceans it gives the finest naval positions that a great maritime power could desire, and the only positions possible for British people on the American continent. A wonderful system of waterways penetrates, from the Atlantic frontage, unto the very heart of the continent, to prairies which are the greatest undeveloped wheat area in the world, lands capable of supporting a large population and of proved capacity to yield a vast surplus of food products. The trend of the Great Lakes and of the St. Lawrence towards the point which gives the shortest sea connection with Europe indicates the natural direction in which this food surplus will chiefly flow. Should the still open question of the summer navigation of Hudson's Bay by grain vessels be settled in the affirmative, even the facilities offered by the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence for cheap transit would be eclipsed, and western wheat placed on English markets at a rate hitherto unknown. But this is a contingency, and it is perhaps better to confine the attention to settled facts.

The significance of Canada's geographical position, facing and commanding the two great northern oceans at the points nearest to the opposite continents of Europe and Asia, is supplemented by geological facts of extreme national interest. At the very point where the Dominion stretches out furthest towards Europe, {118} and where the maritime provinces furnish open harbours all the year round, we find in Nova Scotia and Cape Breton inexhaustible supplies of excellent coal. The coal areas of this region are the only sources: of supply in Eastern America northward of Pennsylvania, and the only sources directly upon the eastern coast of the continent, where they seem to give a singular advantage for both transatlantic and transcontinental trade. Crossing now the 3800 miles which measure the breadth of the continent, we come to the Pacific coast, and the excellent harbours with which it also is everywhere indented. The importance to the Empire of these harbours is manifest, since they are the only ports under the British flag on the whole Pacific coast of America from Cape Horn to the Behring Sea, the only base of naval supply, the only means the Empire has of matching the Russian depot, Vladivostock (soon to be in direct connection with St. Petersburg itself), over which they have the great advantage of being open all the year round. They furnish the base from which the trade of the North Pacific is, and must be, protected. For the defence and prosecution of trade, still more important than the harbours themselves is the fact that in the Island of Vancouver, where Canada stretches out so as to give the shortest route to Japan and China, we have again an abundance of coal. The importance of these deposits is enhanced by the circumstance that all other coal found on the Pacific coast from Cape Horn northward to Puget Sound is of an inferior quality, {119} and limited in quantity. San Francisco itself obtains a large part of its coal from Vancouver Island in the north, or from the British colony of New South Wales on the other side of the Pacific.

Looking East and West, then, the Dominion has its maritime position confirmed by its supplies of coal. This is not all. Deposits extending over thousands of square miles have been discovered midway in the great prairie region, at once solving the fuel problem for a treeless country and supplying the force that carries trade and population across the continent. Later discoveries in the Rocky Mountains indicate the presence there of an anthracite coal peculiarly adapted to naval use, and likely to supply our ships in the Pacific with fuel of a quality equal to any that British mines can furnish.

The facts of Canada's maritime position thus broadly stated will, I think, leave on most minds the impression that should the country pass under a foreign flag, so that British ships could claim only the rights of aliens in the harbours of the Atlantic and Pacific, or even under an independent flag, when they could enjoy only the rights of neutrals, the change would mean a complete revolution in the conditions under which British commerce is protected, and the influence of the nation maintained on the two oceans.

There is, again, a military as well as a naval aspect from which to regard Canada's geographical relation to the Empire.

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The energy of the Canadian people has within a few years linked together the Pacific and Atlantic frontages of the Dominion by a great railway system. The new line has the advantage of being shorter than any other transcontinental route, and crosses the Rocky Mountains at a level 1500 feet below any line further south. The anticipated obstacle of snow blockade in the mountain district has been effectually overcome; in the Eastern or Intercolonial section, where alone this difficulty recurs from drifting snow, it is being reduced to a minimum. Practically it now amounts to the possibility of one or two days' delay twice or thrice during the winter months, and apparently even this might be obviated by the more liberal use of snow-sheds. A winter often passes without any obstruction worth mentioning. The line is unquestionably the most effective among those which cross the American continent. It has enabled English letters to reach Japan in twenty-one days instead of the forty required by the old routes. Military authorities pronounce it a valuable addition to the Empire's means of communication with the East. Its climatic advantage over the Cape of Good Hope and Suez Canal routes at some seasons of the year may yet add strength to its other recommendations. Compared with these routes it is also the safest, since furthest removed from the possibility of European attack. Of its military efficiency there can be no reasonable doubt. The manager of the Canada Pacific Railway told me that his company had made representations {121} to the Imperial Government that it would undertake to transport men in blocks of 5000 from troop-ships at Halifax to troop-ships at Vancouver within seven days. His statement is justified by the fact that a single train has already carried 600 marines and blue-jackets with their officers from the Pacific to the Atlantic within that time. Such trains can be indefinitely multiplied. Thus a squadron at Vancouver could be reinforced from Portsmouth in about a fortnight by this route, a squadron in the China Seas in a little more than three weeks. A fifty days' voyage in the first case by Cape Horn, a forty days' voyage in the latter by the Suez Canal, has hitherto been the rule. Such facts illustrate the greatness of the changes which are taking place in the conditions of our naval defence. The swift steamships which complete the Eastern connection are constructed for immediate transformation in case of necessity into armed cruisers for the transport of troops and for the protection of the commerce which they are themselves creating. Supplemented by ships of a corresponding character on the Atlantic, such a route might in a national emergency prove an immense addition to the military resources of the Empire, and especially for the defence of India. The mere fact of its existence adds to the nation's military prestige, and the consequent hesitation of any other power in making attack.

A word should be added about Canada's geographical relation to the telegraphic system of the {122} Empire. The existing lines of communication between the United Kingdom and the Australasian colonies and India have never yet been tested by the chances of a European war. In all cases they pass over foreign countries or through shallow seas whence they could be easily fished up and cut. What an entire break of this connection would mean in the commercial world may be judged from the fact that even now more than a thousand pounds a day are spent on cablegrams between Britain and the Australasian colonies alone.

What it would mean in the emergencies of war may be left to the imagination. The panic caused in Australia a few years since by an accidental break in the line at a time when war with Russia seemed imminent clearly proved the importance of the question.

These considerations sufficiently indicate the immense advantage and greater security which would come from an alternative route across Canada. The case was clearly stated by Mr. Sandford Fleming, the distinguished Canadian engineer, in an address to the Colonial Conference of 1887, to which he was a delegate: 'The western terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway—Vancouver—is in telegraphic communication with London. Communications have passed between London and Vancouver, and replies returned within a few minutes. From Vancouver cables may be laid to Australasia by way of Hawaii or they may be laid from one British island to {123} another, and thus bring New Zealand and all the Australasian colonies directly into telegraphic connection with Great Britain, without passing over any soil which is not British, and by passing only through seas as remote as possible from any difficulties which may arise in Europe.

'Again, India can be reached from Australasia by the lines of the Eastern Telegraphic Company; South Africa can be reached through the medium of the Eastern and South African Company: and thus, by supplying the one link wanting, the Home Government will have the means provided to telegraph to every important British colony and dependency around the circumference of the globe, without approaching Europe at any point.'

The advantages, commercial and military, of a line of communication thus isolated and national, as compared with those which pass through or near the political storm-centres of Europe, are too obvious to require elaboration. Since 1887 a survey of this route has been going on, though far too slowly, under the direction of the Admiralty; groups of islands useful for operating the line have been annexed, and the laying of the cable seems only to depend on a more general recognition of its national necessity.

What has now been said indicates roughly Canada's geographical relation to the question of a united oceanic empire, of which she may fairly be regarded as the key-stone. What is next to be considered is {124} her relation to the great state which lies along her southern border, and which divides with her about equally the bulk of the North American continent. Here our study of the map must go hand in hand with the study of Canadian history.

A series of great lakes and rivers, and, for the rest, astronomical or arbitrary boundary lines, constitute the only geographical divisions between the United States and Canada. The political and moral line of separation is due to the fact that more than a century ago the colonies which formed the germ of the United States revolted and threw off their connection with Great Britain; those which formed the nucleus of Canada elected to remain united with the mother-land and to work out their political destiny in accordance with British institutions.

The geographical boundary, like those which divide many other nations, seems indefinite and artificial to the mere student of maps; it has been engraved deeply enough in the hearts of Canadian people. It had to be defended in 1775, and once more in the war of 1812, at much expense of life and treasure. Crossing it in 1783 and succeeding years, the persecuted Loyalists of the American Revolution found safety and freedom under the British flag[1]. Again it {125} had to be defended from the Fenians organized in 1866 on American soil. Fishing disputes and boundary disputes, embittered by Canadian dissatisfaction with the methods of American diplomacy, have kept attention fixed upon the line of national demarcation. Still more sharply has it been defined by national habits of thought. South of the line, for at least three-quarters of a century after the Revolution, on a thousand fourth of July platforms dislike and hatred of all things British have been studiously inculcated. Even now an appeal to anti-British feeling may decide the fate of a Presidential election, and has been the winning trick of party politics. North of the line, at every public gathering and on every public holiday up to the present moment, loyalty to the British nationality for which such sacrifices were made, and allegiance to institutions which have borne thoroughly the test of application in a new country, are recognized as of the very essence of the popular life. The mere suspicion that these principles were being trifled with by a few erratic and irresponsible members of a great and otherwise perfectly loyal political party has excluded that party from power for a period almost beyond the limit of political experience in British countries. It is scarcely possible to imagine conditions under which communities kindred in race, language, and {126} literature could have had a more decisive and divergent bias given to their history, to national traditions and enthusiasms, to everything that lies at the roots of individual political life. They have prevailed decisively against contiguity, against commercial intercourse, social intercourse, literary intercourse, against a considerable interchange of population. Those who know best the passions which control the popular mind in Canada are fixed in the belief that the retention of a political individuality independent of the United States has become the touchstone of Canadian national honour.

To understand why this is so we must recall and account for one primary fact, remarkable enough in itself and probably unique in history. We can easily understand that it requires no very marked natural boundary to form the line of division between nations which differ in language, religion, and descent, as in the case of European states. But in America we see that an almost purely artificial line of division has for more than a century been drawn across the breadth of a continent, and between two peoples who speak the same language, study the same literature, and are without any decisive distinctions of religious creed. There has been a great drawing together between the United States and Canada, as between England and Canada, during the last twenty-five years, but it is no greater in the one case than the other, and proceeds on social and literary, not on political lines. Evidently there {127} is in addition to the geographical line some fundamental principle or fact which separates the two countries.

The same profound national convulsion which gave birth to the United States gave birth to the real life of Canada as well. As much principle and as much self-sacrifice were involved in the act of the Loyalists who gave to British Canada its peculiar character as in the struggles of the Revolutionists who founded the American Union. For what he believed a great principle, the Revolutionist broke down an old loyalty, cut his ties with the past, and engaged in the battle for independence. The Loyalist, on the other hand, with an abiding faith in the institutions of his mother-land, not to be shaken by the single mistake of a king, a minister, or a parliament, elected to stand by the losing side, to depend upon constitutional agitation to secure the full political liberty he too desired, and so sacrificed his all to retain his connection with the past, and came to Canada. No victory that Britain ever won by land or sea is more worthy to be blazoned on the pages' of her history than the loyal devotion of that great body of men and women, who, refusing to abjure their ancient allegiance, after the Revolutionary war, gave up their homes, their professions, and all that made life comfortable, crossed over into what was then a forest wilderness, and built up those Canadian provinces which have since grown into a great British confederation.

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Who will venture to say that the faith of the Loyalist has not been as fully justified as that of the Revolutionist? American institutions have not developed any higher forms of political or religious freedom than those which are found in Canada and in other colonies of the Empire today under British institutions. They have not produced a higher tone of public morals or a greater purity of social life. They have not even diminished the risk of great national convulsion. They have not made impossible the oppression or abuse of inferior races, black, red, or yellow. They have not rendered statesmanship more noble and unselfish, justice more incorruptible, human life more sacred, domestic ties more holy, the people more God-fearing. I do not believe that there is a Canadian from one end of the Dominion to the other who honestly believes that American institutions have equalled, much less surpassed, his own in anyone of these particulars. If these are the things which ennoble a nation—if these are marks of true success—the descendants of the Loyalists have no reason to regret the choice which their ancestors made at the time of the Revolutionary war.

The strain under which that choice was made, and the courageous loyalty which inspired it, have never had the recognition throughout the Empire which they deserved. One English historian, however, has done justice to the United Empire Loyalists. Mr. Lecky says: 'There were brave and honest men {129} in America; who were proud of the great and free Empire to which they belonged, who had no desire to shrink from the burden of maintaining it, who remembered with gratitude all the English blood that had been shed around Quebec and Montreal, and who, with nothing to hope for from the Crown, were prepared to face the most brutal mob violence, and the invectives of a scurrilous press, to risk their fortunes, their reputations, and sometimes even their lives, in order to avert civil war and ultimate separation. Most of them ended their days in poverty and exile, and, as the supporters of a beaten cause, history has paid but a scanty tribute to their memory, but they comprised some of the best and ablest men America has ever produced, and they were contending for an ideal which was, at least, as worthy as that for which Washington had fought.'

That ideal was the conception of a United Empire.

How profoundly this great Loyalist tradition, reinforced as it has been by many other considerations and circumstances, has affected Canadian life, can be gauged only by the actual state of Canadian feeling. Mr. Goldwin Smith has spared no endeavour to prove that the assimilation of Canadian and American sentiment is well-nigh complete. Let us, instead of consulting his imaginative statements, study the actual and quite recent expressions of representative public men and bodies.

Commencing in Eastern Canada, we find Attorney-General Longley, of Nova Scotia, a pronounced {130} opponent of the present Dominion Government, who in past times has seemed to approach very nearly to the advocacy of annexation, now writing in the Fortnightly for March, 1891: 'There is still a deep-seated objection in the minds of a large majority of the people of Canada to union with the United States. It may be unphilosophical, it may be irrational, but it exists. … It is not very easy to blot out a century of history in a day, and the record of the past hundred years has had a constant tendency to confirm British Americans in their devotion to British as against American interests. … It is simply not a practical solution of the future of Canada to suggest political union with the United States, because the preponderating majority of the people will not hear of it. Time is the great miracle worker and may change all this; but we must speak of things as they are. No material considerations will induce the Canadian people at present to accept political union with the United States.'

Archbishop O'Brien, also a Nova Scotian, and the most representative and influential Roman Catholic of Eastern Canada, has in many public utterances expressed his conviction that annexation to the United States would involve for Canada moral damage and political degradation.

New Brunswick, out of its sixteen Parliamentary representatives, had in the last Parliament one whose attitude was ambiguous, since as an editor he seemed to advocate, as a politician he abjured, the idea of {131} annexation. Journalistic ability of a high order and the fact that he represented a commercial constituency having closer trade connection with the New England ports than any other Canadian town made tenable for a time this anomalous position. A decisive vote in the last election left him out of public life, and thus deprived Mr. Goldwin Smith of perhaps the only illustration of his claim that the advocacy of annexation does not exclude from the Dominion Parliament.

Passing on to Quebec we find Mr. Mercier, till lately the local French Canadian leader, hastening to supplement, as he not long since did in Paris to a Times correspondent, an expression of opposition to Imperial Federation by the statement that there is 'no party in Canada … in favour of annexation to the United States.' In Ontario we find Mr. Blake, the strongest man of the Liberal party, withdrawing from public life because he thought he discovered, in the policy of his political friends, a tendency towards annexation. This, at least, is the interpretation which suggests itself to the ordinary reader of his published explanation. The repudiation of any desire for annexation was general, vehement, and doubtless sincere, on the part of the more conspicuous Liberal leaders against whom it had been charged.

Mr. Mowat, the Liberal Premier of Ontario, has lately written a letter for publication, in which he says: 'There are in most counties a few annexationists, {132} in some counties more than in others; but the aggregate in the Dominion, I am sure, is small when compared with the aggregate population. The great majority of our people, I believe and trust, are not prepared to hand over this great Dominion to a foreign nation for any present commercial consideration which may be proposed. We love our Sovereign and are proud of our status as British subjects. The Imperial authorities have refused nothing in the way of self-government which our representatives have asked for. … To the United States and its people we are all most friendly. We recognize the advantages which would go to both them and us from extended trade relations, and we are willing to go as far in that direction as shall not involve, now or in the future, political union; but there Canadians of every party have hitherto drawn the line. … North America is amply large enough for two independent nations, and two friendly nations would be better for both populations than one nation embracing the whole continent.' In another formal statement of the policy of the Liberal party in Canada, Mr. Mowat has said: 'We are as much attached to our nation as the people of the United States are to theirs. The attachment to their nation does our neighbours honour, and intelligent men amongst them cannot regard otherwise our attachment to our nation. As no commercial, or other material advantage, real or supposed, would induce the people of the United States to change their allegiance, so neither, I hope, {133} will the prospect of some material advantage induce Canadians to change their allegiance to the Empire. … For the Liberal party or any important section of it to favour political union with the United States would be death to all hope of Liberal ascendancy in the Councils of the Dominion.'

Going still further West to the prairie regions and British Columbia, hitherto relied upon by Mr. Goldwin Smith for producing a population free from the political traditions and prejudices of the East, we find a compact vote recorded for a Government which makes the maintenance of British connection the corner-stone of its policy, and a chief ground of appeal to the constituencies.

Lastly, we come back to the Dominion Parliament itself. There, in 1890, Liberal and Conservative, Frenchman and Englishman alike, by an absolutely unanimous vote, given with the avowed object of silencing discussion upon the point, united in declaring their unwavering faith in the advantage for Canada of its existing national connection. Mr. Smith claims that geography is too strong for national sentiment, but these are the hard facts which he has to confront in Canada at the end of more than a century of her separate existence. Evidence could scarcely be more conclusive that the main facts are those to which he resolutely shuts his eyes.

The expressions which I have given are those of moderate and distinctly representative men, but there is a deeper passion which must be taken into account.

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Could annexation under any circumstances be effected peacefully and at the ballot-box? I doubt it. If a day should ever come when a bare majority of Canadians voted for annexation, would such a decision be accepted by the minority? To many it would mean Revolution and would be treated as such. It must be remembered that nationality is based on feelings which often lie too deep for mere argument or discussion. In all ages of the world it has been a fighting issue, a question on which minorities yielded only on compulsion. Against mere numbers, moreover, intensity of passion and depth of conviction weigh heavily. I have never heard the question openly discussed, and express an opinion upon it with some diffidence, but to me it seems certain that only coercion would make a very large and influential section of Canadian population submit to the changes which annexation would involve. And I think such a minority would be justified in the eyes of all who place honour and devotion to lofty national tradition before material gain.

Living close to the United States, Canadians can see many practical reasons, outside of sentimental ones, why they should not commit the fortunes of their country to an alliance with those of the great republic. Assuming commercial advantage, the political objections might well seem decisive as a counterbalance. The price which the States have to pay for their wonderful career of prosperity is not yet clear. The amazing flood of immigration with which {135} it has been attended is steadily diluting the Anglo-Saxon element and diminishing the relative influence of the native American. A well-known Mayor of Chicago not long since outlined for me the elements of the population over which his municipal rule extended. The analysis would form a curious study for those who would forecast the American type of the next century: A recent event has revealed the fact that America's population includes a great mass of Italians, little in sympathy with the institutions under which they live, and reinforced by emigrants who crowd every steamer that leaves the Mediterranean to cross the Atlantic.

I lately heard a representative American writer and thinker in England say that in his judgment the Irish question was becoming a more disturbing factor in American politics and a more difficult one to deal with, than it has been for Great Britain. Of the value of this sincerely held opinion an outsider cannot perhaps form a just estimate, but we know that a split in Tammany may practically decide a Presidential election, and a Canadian may fairly think that any problem of race or creed with which he has to deal is not more perplexing.

There still remains the race issue in the South. The war of Secession settled the slavery question: it left the negro question as a dead weight upon the future. Thoughtful Americans themselves are among the first to confess that they have not yet seriously attempted to grapple with it. In the first outburst {136} of generosity, or as a move in the game of party politics, the franchise was given along with liberty, and the result no one as yet foresees. Clearly the country has to face the prospect of a steadily consolidating zone of black population stretching far across the continent. Should the Dominion be annexed to the United States all the voting weight of Canada within the union would for a generation to come scarcely balance this single negro element of America's population, supposing that, in accordance with Canadian ideas of political justice, the negroes should be allowed (as they are not now) to exercise their legal right.

The violence and insecurity of life which have marked the settlement of the West, and still prevail over whole States in the South, are unknown in Canada. People ask why lynch law, as little known in new British countries like Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa, as it is in Britain itself, is still a common phenomenon in the administration of American justice. Canada has managed a large Indian population with little serious difficulty; her neighbours during the same years have been engaged in a series of wars of extermination, apparently the outcome for the most part of maladministration in Indian affairs. The confusion of marriage and divorce laws throughout the various states has become a serious evil, for which no remedy has yet been devised. If Canadians have sometimes to wrestle with political corruption, they at least do so resolutely and {137} effectively, while there is a widespread belief that among their neighbours it is a permanent and accepted factor in party government.

These points are not dwelt upon in a spirit of petty criticism, but it seems fair to mention them as facts which influence powerfully Canadian judgment in forming an opinion on the comparative merits of the political systems which they see working side by side.

One other consideration beyond that of commercial advantage has often been thrust upon Canadians as a reason why they should seek annexation. They are told that so long as they remain politically connected with Britain they will be exposed to the chances of war with the United States, since the Dominion would naturally be made the first point of attack should differences arise between the two countries. It is urged that resistance to such an attack would be useless and absurd, and that Canada's only guarantee of safety from future subjugation and the military occupation of the country is to form as quickly as she can and on the best terms she can, a civil union with the power that thus threatens her.

If the appeal to mere commercial advantage seemed mercenary, this appeal to cowardice seems base. Certainly it is one which has never made any impression on the Canadian mind. Perhaps this is mere recklessness. It might be argued, however, that 4000 miles of frontier are as perplexing for attack as for defence. Canadians remember that in 1812 they successfully faced a corresponding danger when the odds were as {138} much against them, and numbers as disproportionate, as they are today. They remember that to crush the Southern States, fighting without outside help, required the most expensive and destructive war of modern times, prolonged over renewed campaigns. They know at any rate that the task of subduing them is one which would not be lightly undertaken. But picture the worst that such a war could bring: defeat, military occupation, complete subjugation. If war between Britain and the United States be, as is claimed, a possibility of the future, would not each and all of these be for Canadians infinitely preferable to placing themselves in such a position that; having abandoned a country which they loved and joined themselves to a country which they feared, they would by that act be pledged to use their arms, their means, their collective forces as a people, against the land that gave them birth, that had extended over them the strong shield of her protection through a hundred years of struggling infancy, and had freely given them the best she had to give of perfect freedom and noble institutions?

I am satisfied that this argument alone is quite sufficient to make annexation to the United States a moral impossibility for the Canadian people. They may join heartily in every process by which their mother-land and the great republic are drawn more closely together; they may even be in no small degree the link which binds them together in friendly feeling. But to expose themselves to the possibility of hostile {139} conflict with that mother-land for the sake of a temporary commercial advantage or from motives of cowardice would make them incur the contempt of the people they leave and the contempt of the people they join. In the long run it may be taken for granted that the path of commercial and every other prosperity will be found along the path of national honour. That national honour is looked upon as the issue at stake there can be no reasonable doubt.

In considering more closely the question of commercial advantage it may in the outset be remarked that no truly noble individual life, much less any truly noble national life, was ever yet built up on principles and purposes entirely mercenary. The landmarks in history to which the human heart everywhere turns with a thrill of instinctive pride are the periods when nations have forgotten, for a time, self-interest and the love of gain, and in the glow of patriotic enthusiasm have made great sacrifices from motives of principle, affection, honour, and loyalty, British Canada owes its foundation to such an outburst of lofty spirit. The United States themselves were founded, as a nation, upon what seemed at the time an utter defiance of commercial advantage, and the heroic periods of that country, as of every other, the periods which gave birth to all that is noblest and purest in it, were not the times of its wealth and luxury, but the times of its self-denial, suffering, effort, and sacrifice. Prosperity must be an incident of noble national life; not the sole foundation on which it is built.

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Again, while it would be absurd to undervalue material prosperity, we must constantly remember that its highest value consists as much in the discipline of the powers required for its acquisition as in the acquisition or possession itself. This must be as true of nations as daily experience shows it to be in the case of individuals. When Canadians are told that they must look to political union with the United States for any increase of commercial prosperity, and that such a connection will at once draw them into a tide of greater business energy, I cannot but think that a prosperity purchased by such means is obtained by the sacrifice of that which gives prosperity its greatest worth. Speaking as a Canadian to Canadian audiences, I have sometimes put the argument in this way: 'We have a country with enormous capacity for development. The field is large enough and varied enough to satisfy the greatest energy and every form of it. The consolidation of a national strength, the linking together of our widespread provinces by railway systems, the opening up of our great North-West, seem to have removed the chief obstacles which have hitherto stood in our way. Under such circumstances, or under any circumstances, would it not be infinitely more worthy of us, would it not be a far better national training and discipline, to set ourselves resolutely to work to supply that in which we are deficient, rather than to seek it ignominiously at the hands of our neighbours? Can it be true that we have not the strength of brain or hand to wrest from nature the {141} success and prosperity which others have won? If we have not, then let us not add to our weakness a spirit of mean dependence.'

Looking at the question under aspects such as these, I find it impossible to conceive that Canadians, who have for more than a century received their national impulse and development from a political system which they believe the best in the world, for which they have continued to profess the most devoted regard, and to which they are tied by a thousand bonds of affectionate sympathy, will deliberately, in cold blood, and for commercial reasons only, dissolve that connection, and join themselves to a state with the history and traditions of which they have little sympathy, and to whose form of government they object. To take such a course would indicate an extraordinary degradation of public sentiment.

When, therefore, I am told that geography and commercial tendencies are strong, I can only reply that the bias of national life and loyalty to the spiritual forces which give a people birth are stronger still. A sensitive regard for public honour is infinitely stronger.

But even the question of commercial advantage has two aspects.

Comparing the relative advantages of the United States and the British Empire we find that with the former lies that of continental isolation—a position so secure, peopled as the country now is, that no external power could hope to shake it. Attack might be annoying and detrimental, but by no means fatal, {142} for the chief dependence of the country is not upon external trade. Even a blockade of all its ports would stimulate internal activity, for the United States are almost self-sufficing in the matter of production, and manufacturing industry would have the whole union entirely to itself. A very remarkable and advantageous position we must admit this to be, freeing the country from external dangers to which other nations are subject, and so leaving it in a better position to grapple with those vast internal problems of race and colour which confront it.

Very different indeed is the advantage which Britain enjoys. She has, however, no reason to envy the great Republic. Instead of continental compactness she has world-wide diffusion—precisely that kind of diffusion which satisfies the necessities of countries which depend, and must always to a considerable degree depend, upon external trade. It would be too much perhaps to say that at the present moment the British Empire possesses the same security on the ocean that the United States have on their continent, but it is not too much to affirm that with her command of the strongest maritime positions of the world, her backing of vigorous and growing populations, and her resources in money and trained men for naval equipment, she could soon become so. This is the kind of security which Britain requires with her vast outflow of merchandise—her inflow of food and raw material. It is the kind of security needed by countries like Australia, New Zealand, or South {143} Africa, which have an enormous export of special products for which the character of the country is specially adapted. If no question of national honour were involved, and if Canada had to make a choice purely upon grounds of national security between what is offered to her from connection with the United States and with the Empire, the decision would depend upon whether she aspired to great commercial connections or would be content with merely continental relations. It is certain that if the United States ever regain control of their own carrying trade, or if by the development of manufacturing energy they are led to look largely to outside markets, they will feel more and more the limitations imposed by a purely continental position. Canada has at the present time large maritime interests. Her great length of sea coast, the productive fisheries east and, west, the facility for ship-building given by her forests, have stimulated her maritime activity to such an extent that in tonnage of shipping she now ranks fourth among the nations of the world, counting the United Kingdom as one. Her sailing ships are found in every quarter of the world, taking part in the carrying trade. Several great steam-ship lines cross the Atlantic, another connects the Pacific coast with Japan and China—a line is projected to Australasia—others carry on trade with the eastern and western coasts of America and with the West Indies. The instincts and conditions which have made British people a maritime and trading race are renewed in {144} the Dominion. Canada's interest is to retain the national connection which gives her commerce the best opportunities, her fleets the surest protection in all parts of the world.

The Canadian shipmaster or trader knows that at ports all over the world, at Hong Kong and Calcutta, at Malta or Melbourne, at the Cape or Auckland, in a word, at all the great centres of the world's ocean commerce, he can claim the protection of the national flag, he has a right to apply to the British consul, he can rely on the prestige of the British name. These are rights of which the Canadian knows the value. They are rights which he is not likely to relinquish, for they have been honestly won, first by retaining his allegiance at the price of much sacrifice in the revolution of 1776, and then by steady persistence in that allegiance at all costs through more than a century. He knows they are rights that no other nation can give him in equal degree.

It is in trade relations, however, that Canada's interest is supposed to look away from Great Britain or the rest of the Empire, and towards the United States. Twenty years ago the American Republic entered upon its policy of excluding as far as possible the products of other countries, and among them those of Canada, by a high protective tariff. That policy has been steadily maintained until it has reached a climax in the McKinley tariff. It had previously forced a protective policy upon Canada itself. It seems clear that the Dominion has suffered {145} to some extent commercially by this exclusion from the markets of her own continent, by the resolute determination of their neighbours that Canadians shall not, as Canadians, have any share in the prosperity of the United States. That she has gained in energy, self-reliance, and national purpose is equally clear to anyone who attempts to measure the splendid and successful efforts which she has since confederation and under this exclusion made at self-development. That the moral gain infinitely outweighs the commercial loss, I, for one, firmly believe. But there are those who argue that for the commercial advantage which it is anticipated would flow from union with the United States, the continental independence of the country, its historical traditions, its political institutions, its nationality, should be abandoned. In Great Britain itself there are found many who assume as a matter of course that commercial attraction will inevitably lead to the political absorption of the Dominion into the United States. I believe that the opinion is a mistaken one. The grounds upon which it is based deserve examination. Let it be remembered that no one now ventures to bring forward in support of this proposition any argument based on the superior freedom or excellence of American institutions, social or political. The day for that is past. We can assert, without fear of contradiction, that the condition of the self-governing colonies of Britain finds no parallel in the world in making government an immediate reflection of the {146} popular will, and so in giving the utmost possible freedom and weight of influence to the individual citizen. When Lord Dufferin told an American audience at Chicago that Canadians would not breathe freely in a country where the Executive was placed for years together beyond the reach of the popular will, and was not under the constant supervision of the Legislative bodies, he indicated a vital difference which distinguishes the form of popular government in British countries from the American system, a difference which colonists think is all in favour of the former. If the government of any self-ruling dependency of England is bad, the fault lies in the character of the constituency, not in the form of government.

The question, then, is purely one of commercial advantage, a certain supposed and possibly temporary per-centage of trade gain which Canadians would secure by abjuring their national allegiance.

Grounds are not wanting for the belief that the inevitable tendency of several very great trade interests of Canada is more towards Great Britain and some of the British dependencies than towards the United States. From their position and physical character Canada and the United States must in many ways be rival producers. Both are great grain and cattle raising countries. Both wish their surplus of agricultural productions to reach the consuming millions of the old world, or the tropical countries like the West Indies where they may be exchanged for articles of {147} use or luxury. Certain it is that the United States now export to Great Britain many millions of pounds' worth of those very products which Canada sends in smaller quantities to the States. Such a fact scarcely bears out the assertion that the United States furnish the natural market of Canada. It rather suggests that better organization for transport and greater commercial enterprize would make the English market the more valuable of the two for Canada.

But while urging this view of ultimate trade tendencies there is no need to underestimate the present advantage and convenience which Canada would derive from the freest possible access to American markets. These may be at once admitted, the only qualification being that Canada cannot afford to purchase advantage and convenience at the price of national dishonour or humiliation. Let us remember, however, that advantage and convenience are not confined to one side.

It is already true, it is becoming increasingly true, that the United States must have Canadian products. They leap over even the barrier of a McKinley tariff. American forests are nearly exhausted—those of Canada are not only still of immense extent, but practically inexhaustible, since nature has reserved by conditions of soil and climate, large areas exclusively for the growth of trees. Canadian waters have well nigh a monopoly of the best fish of the American continent. From Nova Scotia northward gulf and bay swarm with fish which pour downwards {148} from the cold Arctic regions in numbers that never fail, and of the best quality. The lakes and rivers of the north-west might well supply the whole of the centre of the continent with fresh-water fish. On the Pacific the Canadian monopoly is not so complete since the purchase of Alaska by the United States, but the fisheries of British Columbia have a great future. On the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and in the inland prairie region Canada can supply coal in abundance to regions in the United States without deposits of their own. American brewers find it necessary to have Canadian barley, and are earnestly petitioning Congress to reduce the duty from thirty to the old rate of ten cents per bushel. So too with farm produce of other kinds. American consumers now pay a higher price for the eggs and poultry once drawn from Canada but driven by the McKinley tariff to seek new, and as it turns out, fairly satisfactory markets in Great Britain. That tariff must inevitably result in a largely increased development of manufacturing industry, a closer pressure of consumption upon producing power in the matter of food in the United States, and a consequent increase in the demand, already very noticeable in New England towns, for easy access to Canadian supplies. The freedom of the markets of the continent is likely ere long to be a stronger election cry in the United States than it has been in the Dominion[2].

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Something ought perhaps to be said in reference to the part which Canada seems likely to take in supplying food to the United Kingdom. The area of wheat production has shifted rapidly on the American continent, first westward from New York State to Ohio, Illinois, and Iowa, then northward to Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Dakota. Till within a few years past these northern states of the Union were supposed to mark the limit of successful wheat cultivation. Actual experience has now proved that it is several hundreds of miles further north, and that in Canadian territory is included the largest and richest undeveloped wheat area in the world. Allowance must be made for occasional early frosts, which are, {150} however, not so disastrous as Indian or Australian droughts, and may apparently be successfully combated by fall ploughing and early sowing. When this allowance is made, it seems clearly proved that in both quantity and quality the north-western provinces and territories of Canada will soon take a leading place in grain supply. The railway, which opened up the country to settlement, was completed in 1885. Yet in 1887 the districts which it reached, with but a scattered population, yielded 12,000,000 bushels of surplus wheat; in 1890, 16,000,000 bushels; and the estimate for 1891 is 21,000,000 bushels. Eight times this quantity would supply the whole British demand. At the present average of production 100,000 farmers thrown into the north-west, which {151} is capable of absorbing many hundreds of thousands, would raise all the wheat that now comes into the United Kingdom. Statisticians are already forecasting the date when the growth of population, going on side by side with the exhaustion of the more fertile prairie lands in the United States, will equalize production and consumption in that country, and leave it unable to furnish the supplies on which Britain has hitherto so largely depended. Speaking to a Yorkshire audience not long since, Sir Lyon Playfair suggested twenty years hence as the probable period to the time when England could expect to draw wheat supplies from the United States, after which she would have to depend on Canada, India, and other countries chiefly within the Empire. On the same question Mr. Bryce, in speaking of the United States, says: 'High economic authorities pronounce that the beginnings of this time of pressure lie not more than thirty years ahead. Nearly all the best arable land of the West is already occupied, so that the second and third best will soon begin to be cultivated; while the exhaustion already complained of in farms which have been under the plough for three or four decades will be increasingly felt.' Like opinions have been expressed by American writers. Whatever may be thought about the precise point of time, the tendency is manifest. Within a measurable time the Empire will, by the natural progress of events, mainly supply its own markets with wheat, and, it may be added, with its second most important article of consumption {152} meat. The argument which I have used in another place, pointing to the advantage and greater security for both producer and consumer, of having so far as possible the areas which furnish the raw material of manufacture under the protection of the national flag, applies with equal, if not greater force, to food supply.

[1] 'Mob violence and many forms of injustice, made life almost intolerable for them in their homes, and emigration to British territory took place on a scale which has been hardly paralleled since the Huguenots. It has been estimated, apparently on good authority, that in the two provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick alone, the Loyalist emigrants and their families amounted to not less than 35,000 persons, and the total number of refugees cannot have been much less than 100,000.—Jones' 'History of New York,' ii. 259, 268, 500, 509. An American authority quoted by Mr. Lecky.

[2] Since writing the above I have found the case thus put from the United States point of view in the North American Review for August, 1890:—'The exhaustion of the forests of Maine, the disappearance of the forests in the Saginaw valley, and the utter disregard for the future by which the policy of protection has stimulated the policy of destruction, will in a quarter of a century result in denuding vast areas of the United States of the timber supply available within reasonable reach of its great points of demand. All the industries dependent upon timber, if they are to grow in the next twenty years, will need new resources for the supply of the raw material. Whence can these be obtained except from the portion of the continent outside of the United States? …When one recalls the vast stretches of treeless prairies within the United States, in which shelter must be provided, the necessities and exhaustion of rainless regions resulting from the destruction of forests, and the rapid growth of vast cities on the lakes and plains, and also the fact that from the northern part of the continent above is a supply of timber certain for all future time, the necessity for the extension of commerce so as to include these areas is apparent. …

'The exhaustion of wheat lands is a consideration of the most vital importance in relation to the future supply of the food of this continent. It is a startling fact, not yet fully realized by the people of this country, that at the present rate of procedure the United States may be a large importer of breadstuffs. The growth of population is so rapid, the exhaustion of arable land so constant, that without new and cultivable territory the sources for the supply of food products will soon be below the local demand. … When it is recalled that the best wheat-producing region of the world is found just north of the Minnesota line, and that in the new provinces and territories of the Canadian north-west there is a possible wheat-supply for all time, it will be seen how important has been the provision of nature for the food of mankind.'

And again:-' Cheap food for New England is the necessity of the hour in that region. … In the Maritime Provinces are abundant sources of food supply. No other country in the world can produce potatoes, apples, oats, hay, poultry, dairy produce, and, still more important, the finest fish food, equal to Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. … In the unlimited supply of cheap raw material from Canada, in the unrestricted output of fish and food products, and the constant employment of cheap labour from the north, the new hope of New England may be found. Without these her manufacturing prospects are gloomy indeed.'

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CHAPTER VI.

FRENCH CANADA.

CANADA has had a two-fold history: French and English. The two elements of the population have not amalgamated to any appreciable extent, the hindrance arising from religion rather than race. We have then today a French-speaking Canada and an English-speaking Canada. It is important to keep in the mind a clear idea of the proportion of the one to the other. The tendency of the French population to remain concentrated in a single province or its immediate neighbourhood, (I do not forget the Acadian French, but they cannot seriously affect the position), makes it easy to indicate this proportion, and its fluctuation. In 1759 Quebec was Canada—a Canada entirely French and Roman Catholic. In 1791 Ontario was set off as a separate province, and within fifty years was of itself equal to the French province in population and superior in wealth. Today Quebec is the only French-speaking province among the seven which make up the Confederation. An overflow into a few of the border counties of Ontario, a limited and {154} scattered migration to the north-west, mark the only further expansion of the French population over new areas in Canada. A considerable migration to New England, where the Quebec peasant becomes a factory operative, is interesting, because it shows that he resists amalgamation in the United States as steadily as in Canada. Quebec then, still represents French Canada. It has a population of 1,500,000, of whom 1,200,000 are French. It should be added that the wealth and influence of the great and growing city of Montreal are in the hands of the English minority, as were the wealth and influence of the city of Quebec in its days of greatest prosperity. A certain unprogressive spirit hampers the Frenchman, and gives a striking commercial and industrial advantage to the English population. Perhaps this contrast may in part be explained by the fact that the conquest of 1759 was followed by the return to France of a small, but intellectually and commercially important element of French Canadian society, while the English population was reinforced a few years later by an influx of loyalist energy and ability.

Roughly speaking, therefore, the French of Canada stand to the whole people as, at the most, a million and a half to five millions. The many provinces which are still to be carved out of the north-west will be English speaking. It is true that the French habitans have large families, and the natural increase of the race is somewhat greater than that of British colonists, but on the other hand the whole inflow of immigration increases {155} the weight of the English-speaking provinces; the outflow to New England lessens that of Quebec. The relative influence and numbers of the French element in Canada will never be greater than they are at present, but rather less, partly owing, as I have said, to the formation of new provinces, but even more to the hesitation of French Canadians to follow the advice of their wiser leaders like Mr. Laurier, and throw themselves more entirely than they have hitherto done into the tide of Anglo-Saxon movement on the continent. More than one historian has pointed out that the efforts of French kings and ministers to make Quebec a preserve for a single set of ideas paralyzed the energies of the colonists in early days. There seems to me to be a like danger now, arising from similar causes, that it may become the less energetic community of a strenuously progressive continent. But it can never dominate Canadian development, or permanently block the general movement of the Dominion in any given direction.

From another point of view French Canada today represents one of the most interesting triumphs of British constitutional government. When the Province of Quebec came under British dominion in 1763, it had never known what free government by the people meant. Governors and Intendants, with almost despotic power, or taking their orders even in minute detail from a French king or minister in Paris, left no room for popular control. Striking indeed was the contrast which the province presented to the {156} English colonies further south, which from their very foundation began to organize a system of local self-government. In Quebec the beginnings of self-government had still to be made after 1763, or, rather, after 1774, the date of the Quebec Act. Yet the remark of Montalembert, that the Frenchman in Canada under British institutions has attained a liberty which the Frenchman of France never knew, is in strict accord with fact. France, which seems to have wasted few regrets on a colony which had always been poor and a drain upon her resources, plunged into all the horrors of the Revolution to win a liberty which after all for more than a century has wavered between name and reality. The people of her surrendered colony, carrying on, along with the British provinces, the agitation for responsible government by methods entirely constitutional, save for the slight outbreak of 1837, have gained and continue in the secure enjoyment of a popular freedom as complete as that of any country in the world; a recognition for their religion such as that religion cannot command in France. Between the European Frenchman, moreover, and the French Canadian is the barrier raised by the Revolution. Modern France does not send emigrants to Quebec, where, indeed, they would scarcely be welcome. The typical French republican, with his atheism, his free life, and his contempt for religious forms, would be curiously out of place in the average French Canadian community, devout, moral, and conservative. He would, indeed, run no slight risk of {157} being boycotted by clerical orders. The sentimental tie with France or race and language remains, and to the honour of French Canadians be it said, is fondly cherished, though it is not sustained by that constant intercourse and hearty literary sympathy which so bind the English world together. The reasoned political allegiance of the people goes out to the British connection, which gives steadiness to their public and security to their religious life.

Once more, French Canadians have profound objections to annexation to the United States. They go in numbers to work in the mills and factories of New England, or in the forests of Michigan or Maine for a few months or a few years, forming a large proportion of the so-called exodus, but those who become naturalized American citizens have hitherto been an unimportant fraction of the whole. Many return, the movement to and fro being continuous. Those who stay form more or less distinct communities of their own, to which cohesion is given by the curé, who follows to supply the ministrations of their religion. The simple loyalty of the habitant to his Canadian home and to his religion is no slight offset to his narrowness of political outlook and his somewhat unprogressive habit of mind. It made him fight against American aggression in 1774; it added a bright page to Canadian history by the heroic part taken in the war of 1812, when 400 French Canadians under de Salaberry defeated at Chateauguay an army {158} of 3000 Americans. Happily we need not now think of like aggression, but should danger ever again threaten Canada, there are the strongest reasons to believe that the Frenchman even of the United States would soon find his place beside his compatriot in the old home, fighting for the land he loves with a passionate affection.

It is only natural that, with race, language, and religion on the one side, and on the other a heritage of free political institutions giving security to all of these, we should find fluctuations of expression among an excitable people in regard to national attachment. On the whole, however, the steadiness of French Canadian loyalty to British institutions is remarkable. Cardinal Manning told me in 1886 that French Canadian bishops and clergy had over and over again assured him that their people were practically a unit in preferring British to French, or any other connection, and since that time the pastoral addresses of the highest ecclesiastics have more than once confirmed this statement in explicit terms.

Sir George Cartier described himself as an Englishman speaking French, and he no doubt meant it as a sincere indication of the drift of French Canadian thought. When a conspicuous French politician—not a Conservative—told me in Ottawa three years since that he would not be afraid to stand on any platform in Quebec and affirm that, in the event of war between France and England, other things being equal, four French Canadians out of every five would not only {159} sympathize with, but prefer to fight for England, the energy of the statement was a surprise to me; but I have no reason to doubt the speaker's sincerity. The absolute truth of the statement cannot be questioned, if the supposed contest involved the substitution in Quebec of anti-religious French Republicanism, which the French Canadian hates, for the tolerant system of Britain. Looking back upon all that has happened in France since 1789, looking even at the condition of the Republic today and its attitude towards religion, the French Canadian may, and, it may be added, often does, sincerely echo the thought of the brilliant historian of the French occupation of America when he says that 'a happier calamity never befell a people than the conquest of Canada by the British arms.'

In criticism of what has so far been said of French Canada it will no doubt be replied that Mr. Mercier, the late leader of the French Nationalist party in Quebec, has taken occasion to denounce the proposal to work out some scheme of British unity, and has pointed to independence as, in his opinion, the ideal future for Canada. No doubt Mr. Mercier was for a time able to introduce new features into the political life of Quebec, but there is no reason to suppose that he broke down even for a moment the traditional policy of his people, who have long looked upon their British connection as the chief safeguard for the rights which they most value. The exposure of Mr. Mercier's political methods and the collapse of his system make {160} it perhaps unnecessary to discuss his views on national affairs.

Mr. Laurier, the exceedingly able and fair minded leader of the opposition in the Canadian Parliament, is described in 'The Problems of Greater Britain,' as 'more or less in favour of' Imperial Federation. He has lately, probably under the pressure of political events in the Dominion, expressed the opinion that independence, rather than Federation with the Empire, was the more desirable end of Canadian development, basing his argument chiefly upon the idea that Canada would, in a federated empire, be drawn into European wars. I have dealt with this objection in another place. Mr. Laurier is devoted to the honour and the interest of Canada, and it may be taken for granted that if these can be proved to coincide with the honour and interest of the Empire, any difficulty which he sees in British unity would disappear.

It will be admitted that the experience of Sir John Macdonald in dealing with the French Canadian people, and his knowledge of French Canadian sentiment towards the Empire and the Dominion were unique. As a statesman he had every reason to consider and conciliate the French vote, by which his parliamentary majority was in part maintained throughout his career. Yet he never saw in French Canadian feeling any bar to a united Empire. In 1889, at a time when certain Quebec politicians, and even members of his own Cabinet, were declaiming {161} rather vigorously against the idea of Imperial Federation, I had an opportunity of asking his opinion as to the ultimate attitude which Quebec was likely to take towards the question. His reply, given without reserve or hesitation, was marked by a decision which was manifestly the outcome of much thought upon the question. I try to reproduce this opinion, not so much to attach to it the weight of his great name, as because it bears upon the face of it the recommendation of reason and truth. 'The relation of Quebec towards the Empire is fixed,' said he, 'by the facts of history and the aspirations of the people themselves. The controlling idea of the French Canadian is to retain his language, religion and civil institutions, necessarily held under a critical tenure on a continent in the main Anglo-Saxon. But he has in the treaty of 1763 and the Quebec Act founded upon it a Magna Charta as dear to him as is to an Englishman that won from King John. By that treaty the honour of England was pledged to France that the Frenchmen of Quebec who then became British subjects should be continued in the enjoyment of their religious and civil institutions. In annexation to the United States or in Canadian independence this guarantee would be given up. In the Great Republic the French Canadian would run the risk of being blotted out as was the Frenchman of Louisiana. In an independent Canada he would hold his own with difficulty. He must in the long run vote to follow the Empire in whatever {162} direction its development may lead. This condition is permanent; all others are temporary. The interest of the French Canadian will lie in resisting separation, whether in the direction of independence or annexation.'

{163}

CHAPTER VII

MR. GOLDWIN SMITH.

No discussion of the relation of Canada to the Empire, much less any more general discussion of British unity, would be complete which omits special reference to Mr. Goldwin Smith and the views on national questions which he has for many years persistently and strenuously advocated. To these views he has challenged attention anew in his latest volume, Canada and the Canadian Question, which may fairly be supposed to condense all that can be said in favour of the separation of Canada from the Empire, and generally in support of that form of national disintegration which is involved in the great colonies becoming separate states or annexing themselves to other nations. Very considerable interest is given to this latest utterance of Mr. Smith from the fact that he is almost the last conspicuous representative of a school of thinkers which twenty-five or thirty years ago appeared likely to dominate English opinion on colonial affairs.

To these men the United Kingdom was, and was to be, sufficient unto itself; the outlying portions of the Empire were but incidental and temporary {164} connections; the greater colonies were to be voluntarily dropped when they had developed strength to stand alone, or as convenient opportunities to get rid of them arose.

The splendid edifice of Empire built up by the toil and statesmanship of generations was an illusion which gave nothing more than a false prestige; its dissolution was to herald the dawn of a better day.

It will be generally admitted that in England this school of thought is practically dead. In his vigorous and persistent attempt to revive it in Canada Mr. Smith has met with little success. That one of the most brilliant writers and masters of style in the English world should in a distant colony have devoted well-nigh twenty years of his life to weakening the political bond between Britain and that colony with practically no visible result, is of itself a phenomenon which indicates the true tendency of national life. But that in the pursuit of his fixed idea Mr. Smith has done much harm is, I think, scarcely open to doubt. Both in Britain and the United States he has produced false impressions on Canadian affairs. The useful efforts which he has made for the elevation of journalism and for the purification of public life in Canada, the greater service which he might have done in giving high ideals to the Young Dominion, have been neutralized or made impossible by his intellectual slavery to a set of ideas which rendered him incapable of entering into or sympathizing with the deeper motives of {165} Canadian life. A great contemporary thinker and satirist, James Russell Lowell, made the 'barbed arrows of his indignant wit' the terror of corrupt politicians, while still retaining the love of the people whom he served. This he did in virtue of his constant sympathy with national aspirations and the firm faith in his country's future which shines through every page of his bitterest criticisms. In a similar sphere of effort Goldwin Smith has failed, because he has permitted an atrabilious and pessimistic temperament, a preference of epigram to accuracy, and an impatience at the non-fulfilment of his own political prophecies to distort his studies of Canadian problems, and to take away much of their value.

For those many Canadians who welcomed his coming to Canada, as one of the happiest omens for the political and intellectual life of the country, in whom even yet admiration struggles with disappointment, the duty of pointing out his unfitness to interpret the political history and actual position of Canada, is as painful as it is imperative.

Mr. Smith's book on Canada is manifestly intended primarily for readers in England. It is to his English audience that he appeals when he says that 'he does not think that the honour or true interest of his native country can for a moment be absent from his breast.' Of this, Englishmen must judge; Canadians, who respect patriotic sentiment, only ask of Mr. Smith (and they have some reason for emphasizing the request) that they may be credited with sincerity {166} when they claim that the honour and true interests of their native country compel them to dispute his arguments and repudiate the main conclusions about Canada's destiny which he outlines for his English readers. Unfortunately they must do no more than this. Mr. Smith claims 'that he has done his best to take his readers to the heart of it (the Canadian question) by setting the whole case before them: that his opinions have not been hastily formed: that they have not, so far as he is aware, been biassed by personal motives of any kind.' This is a pledge of fairness and impartiality in discussion. It is a pledge which, in Canadian opinion, is not fulfilled. No man in Canada speaks or writes with a deeper sense of responsibility than Principal Grant, as a clergyman, as the head of an important university, and as one of the most active moral forces in the Dominion. He knows Canada, too, from end to end, better than any living man. Yet in a formal review of Canada and the Canadian Question Principal Grant endorses the opinion of another writer that Mr. Smith's book is 'so brilliant, so inaccurate, so malicious even, that it is enough to make one weep.' The criticism does not seem to me too strong. Nor must Mr. Smith think that it is only upon super-sensitive Canadian minds that this impression is left. One of the closest thinkers and most brilliant writers on political subjects in England, a man of cool judgment, who has observed Canadian institutions on the spot, said to me after perusing Canada and the Canadian Question that he considered {167} it the most unfair book he had ever read. At the high table of an Oxford college a Canadian ventured to deprecate the acceptance by English people of Mr. Smith's brilliant and epigrammatic statement of half-truths as truths upon Dominion affairs. The reply of one of the clearest thinkers in the University was not unsatisfactory to the colonist. 'We in England know Mr. Smith well, and we know that, where every sentence has to be so sharply pointed as his, a liberal allowance must be made for accuracy. Canadians need have no fear that his views are accepted without question here.'

Nor has the impression been different even at the Antipodes. We read in the Australian Critic: 'To say that the book before us is written by Mr. Goldwin Smith is to say that it is eminently readable, that its style is forcible and epigrammatic, and that its historical descriptions are clear and vivacious. But we have a right to expect something more in a book describing the history and institutions of a country. We have a right to expect fairness, and fairness in this book we do not get.'

This unfairness of statement, thus generally recognized, and evident to every reader from the moment that those phases of Canadian politics are dealt with which led up to and followed upon Confederation, accounts for the irritation so commonly manifested in Canadian criticism of Mr. Smith's views. It is an unfairness the more irritating because often so clever and subtle that it half eludes criticism, and because {168} it is closely interwoven with much vigorous thought on Canadian affairs. More than this, many to whom it gives the greatest annoyance hesitate to criticise it as they would, from a conviction that it is the offspring of temperament and literary habit, rather than deliberate insincerity[1].

Only a few of Mr. Smith's arguments can be dealt with here, and it is perhaps better first to refer to such as are conspicuous by their fallacy rather than those marked by unfairness.

I have pointed out the remarkable naval position which the Empire holds in the North Atlantic and the North Pacific through the possession of Canada. Let us see what Mr. Smith suggests in substitution for this advantage when, as he proposes, it has been voluntarily abandoned.

'Great Britain may need a coaling station on the Atlantic coast of North America, not for the purposes of blockade, which could no longer have place when all danger of war was at an end but for the general defence of her trade. Safe coaling stations and harbours of refuge, rather than territorial dependencies, are apparently what the great exporting country and the mistress of the carrying trade now wants. Newfoundland would be a safe and uninvidious possession, and it has coal, though bituminous and not yet worked. The Americans do not covet islands, {169} for the defence of which they would have to keep up a navy. The island itself would be the gainer: there would be some chance of the development of its resources; with nothing but the fishing the condition of its people seems to be poor. Let England then keep Newfoundland. Cape Breton is rather too close to the coast, otherwise it has coal in itself, and Louisbourg might be restored.' Clearly we have here an Englishman who has learned in his new home to talk a language unfamiliar for some centuries at least to the English ear, and one who fails to grasp the fundamental conditions of England's existence as a great nation. The greatest naval power in the world, bound to defend a world-wide commerce and above all to defend that main food route across the Atlantic which would almost certainly be the first point of attack in a Great European war, because it is the one point at which a well-nigh mortal blow could be delivered, is quietly asked to hand over to another nation her well-nigh impregnable naval station at Halifax, her command of a hundred minor ports, of the St. Lawrence, and of the splendid coal fields of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, and to relegate herself to the rock-bound, fog-encircled and sometimes ice-beset coasts of Newfoundland: to content herself with coal 'bituminous and not yet worked,' and all because the possession would be 'safe and uninvidious' and because 'the Americans do not covet islands.' In this casual redistribution of the bases of naval power it is {170} extremely characteristic and noteworthy that on the Pacific where the trade of a great ocean is to be protected, and where Russia has a great naval depot, not even an island is reserved for British people, probably because again Vancouver is 'rather too near to the coast,' to be outside the range of American covetousness, and its coal deposits too extensive for it to be considered 'uninvidious.' In reading the lines I have quoted from Mr. Smith expressing his conception of the relation of the United States to Great Britain, it is impossible not to recall the words which Shakspere puts into the mouth of Cassius;—

    'Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
    Like a Colossus, and we petty men
    Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
    To find ourselves dishonourable graves.'

Let us not fail, however, to recognize that Mr. Smith does dimly see and admit the conditions under which Britain holds her maritime power. 'Safe coaling stations and harbours of refuge, rather than territorial dependencies are apparently what the great exporting country and the mistress of the carrying trade now wants.' The admission that British naval power rests upon safe coaling stations and harbours of refuge is fundamental. But the most superficial study of the facts or even a glance at the map makes it plain that in the Empire the command of these positions is inseparably connected with territorial possession. Britain cannot turn away her great colonies to work out an independent destiny while {171} at the same time she retains in each the best points in naval and military vantage for the creation of a series of Gibraltars such as Mr. Smith apparently has in his mind. Sir Charles Dilke has clearly pointed out that while we cannot possibly with any regard to commercial security give up the military station which we hold at the extremity of Africa, on the other hand we cannot retain it permanently without the friendship of the colonists and a maintenance of national control over the surrounding country. Still more true is this of Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Let Mr. Smith try to arrange a plan by which Australia, South Africa and Canada will accept independence with its national responsibilities and at the same time hand over to England their 'safe coaling stations and harbours of refuge' which he himself admits are the very conditions of her existence, and he will find himself face to face with a problem much more difficult than any which he propounds to Imperial Federationists when he demands of them a plan.

'Surely,' says Mr. Smith, 'the appearance of a world-wide power, grasping all the waterways and all the points of maritime vantage, instead of propagating peace, would, like an alarm gun, call the nations to battle.' To this it must straightway be answered that the case is one in which as things stand no 'grasping' is required. What British people need for their great national purposes they hold already. Their possessions have been won in a long course of national {172} development and are held in most cases under the solemn confirmation of ancient or modern treaty, or at least by the tacit consent of all the nations. No title-deeds in the world are more secure according to any recognized code of international relation. Nor is her moral right to consolidate her position less strong or more likely to be questioned. Self-defence is a primary instinct and admitted necessity of nature—recognized as such by communities as well as individuals. 'In strengthening her navy, England is pursuing a policy in the strict sense defensive. We threaten nobody. We cherish no ambitious design. It is more and more the wise policy of England to keep out of engagements in matters with which neither we of the mother-country nor our sons in the colonies have any concern. The external policy of England is directed to one object, which is to secure from attack the highway of the sea[2].' To different nations the problem of self-defence comes in different forms. France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Russia, find vast military organization the necessary condition of safe national existence. To none of them would exclusion from commerce with the rest of the world be fatal: their own resources can, in emergency, supply their wants. Resistance to a flood of hostile invasion they must be prepared to make at any moment, and to this the public thought is mainly directed. No one questions their right to equip themselves for this resistance, however much the necessity may be deplored.

{173}

The United States, again, have been hitherto comparatively independent of external commerce. Even the carrying trade has been allowed to slip chiefly into foreign hands. Continental isolation and vast population give a sufficient range for national industry and sufficient security from hostile invasion. They enable the people to turn their attention mainly to internal development and the complex or even threatening problems involved in the assimilation and elevation of the confluent races which are taking possession of the soil. Very different is the position of British people. To them, whether at home or abroad, the steady flow of commerce is as the flow of blood through the veins; the safety of the waterways is practically a question of life or death. The very fact that Britain is not compelled to be a great military power, in the sense that European nations are military powers, adds millions to her armies of industry, increases indefinitely her producing forces and so makes more imperative the necessity for absolutely safe commercial intercourse. Britain, as the result of natural growth, now possesses the unquestionable right and the manifest opportunity, without a single stroke of aggression, to organize a naval power adequate to the protection of the chief waterways of the world, and of the enormous commerce which the industry of her people has created thereon. To any combination thus planned to guard the very life of the nation, what just or reasonable objection can be made? To any objection not just or reasonable {174} what answer must English people make? For a race of traders scattered over all quarters of the globe, peace is a supreme interest, and peace, as the world is now constituted, can only rest on organized power. For the first time in history we see a nation which unites under its flag all the comprehensiveness of a world-wide Empire and a wonderful relative compactness secured by that practical contraction of our planet which has taken place under the combined influences of steam and electricity. No other nation ever has had—it is well nigh impossible to believe that any other nation ever will have—so commanding a position for exercising the functions of what I have called an oceanic Empire, interested in developing and able to protect the commerce of the world. Such an Empire is probably the best guarantee of permanent peace the world has ever had or is likely to have this side of the millennium. Who shall question our right and duty to organize it for the great ends manifestly within our reach?

But Mr. Smith questions not merely our right, but our capacity.

We are told that however much steam and telegraph have annihilated distance 'they have not annihilated the parish steeple. They have not carried the thoughts of the ordinary citizen beyond the circle of his own life and work. They have not qualified a common farmer, tradesman, plough man, or artizan to direct the politics of a world-wide state[3].' Shall we {175} then give up all large statesmanship, and adopt the parish steeple as the measure of our political ideas? The parish steeple has its place and limiting power in England as elsewhere, but it has not prevented the creation of a great Empire, its successful administration and its retention. In the end it is the strongest men and the clearest minds of a country which give direction to its destiny, and nowhere is this more the case than among Anglo-Saxon people. The common farmer, tradesman, plough man, or artizan may not be able to direct the policy of a state, but he has a marvellous instinct for discovering and supporting the man who can, be he a Cromwell or a Cecil, a rail-splitter or a Hohenzollern. When he has made up his mind, moreover, we have more to fear, apparently, from a too complete surrender of his own judgment than from ignorant interference in matters which he does not fully comprehend. That the spread of modern democracy involves no necessity of abandoning large statesmanship the history of the colonies clearly proves. Canadians may not, as Mr. Smith suggests, know much of Australian or South African politics, but they have given themselves up with singular persistence to the guidance of a statesman with an imperial range of ideas and policy. In Australia the masses, however much they may be absorbed in their labour struggles and social problems, choose, as their leaders, with occasional change, but on the whole singular steadiness, men like Sir Henry Parkes, Mr. Service, Sir Samuel Griffiths, Mr. Gillies, or {176} Sir Henry Atkinson, every one of them men who, even when most absorbed with the affairs of their own colonies, are thinking constantly on national questions, and dreaming of some great British unity in the future, as their written and spoken thoughts fully testify. Even in South Africa, with its intensified localism, we see the reins of power committed to a man who stakes his political career equally upon working out a South African unity, and upon securing that it shall be consistent with the policy of a united Empire.

I fear that it is impossible to acquit Mr. Smith of at times making statements disingenuous in themselves and especially misleading to the English reader. Perhaps the peculiar animosity with which he has always regarded those Canadian Railways whose construction has falsified his prophecy that the Dominion could not be welded together, explains, if it does not excuse, a special recklessness of statement when he describes them to English people. Mr. Smith speaks of the Intercolonial Railway as 'spanning the vast and irreclaimable wilderness which separates Halifax from Quebec.' Again he says: 'The maritime Provinces are divided from Old Canada by the wilderness of many hundred miles, through which the Intercolonial Railway runs, hardly taking up a passenger or a bale of freight by the way.' Would the ordinary reader outside of Canada believe, after reading this description, that in the course of the 688 miles of rail between Halifax and Quebec the {177} Intercolonial traverses large counties like Cumberland and Westmorland, among the most fertile and productive in Canada; that though running through forest country in the immediate rear of the settled coast line it is closely connected by a score of short branches with the coal areas and all the thickly populated districts along the Bay of Fundy and the Gulf of St. Lawrence, that for 100 miles it follows the still more populous shores of the River St. Lawrence, and that the comparatively short distance, scarcely more than 100 miles, between the settlements at the head of Bay Chaleur and those of the St. Lawrence is alone responsible for the epithets 'vast and irreclaimable' which Mr. Smith applies to the whole length of the road? Would the reader believe that it is a railway which carries about a million passengers and more than a million tons of freight every year? That it has conferred the enormous advantage of swift communication with the outside world on some hundreds of thousands of people to whom its construction was an object of eager desire for years before it was accomplished? It is true that, worked as a State Railway for the good of the communities through which it passes, for the avowed purpose of uniting the provinces more closely, kept at a high state of efficiency, and under some unusual expense for clearing away snow in winter, a loss is at present annually incurred, but it is doubtful if any public expenditure made in the Dominion confers so great an advantage on so many people, while subserving great national purposes. {178} Not in Canada alone, but in Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, India, Russia and South America, railways, which do not directly pay, are for the public good, or for prospective and indirect advantage, constructed and worked to the content of those who pay for them. In Great Britain state subventions are given to steamship, postal, and cable lines which would not in themselves be at once commercially profitable. For many years a large deficit has been paid on the ordinary English telegraph system; a deficit which even last year amounted to no less than £190,000 sterling. The money has been paid cheerfully, because it gives to the mass of the people the advantages of the sixpenny telegram.

Why should all the vials of wrath, ridicule, and, we may now add, misrepresentation, be reserved for the one State Railway of Canada, because the people are willing to pay the deficiency of £50,000 or £100,000 involved in its operation, for the sake of the consolidation which it has given to the Dominion, and the unmeasured benefit which it confers on immense districts and large populations which would otherwise be singularly isolated, socially and commercially, from the rest of Canada and the rest of the world.

Once more, speaking in disparagement of the same railway as a military route, Mr. Smith says: 'At the time when the Intercolonial was projected, the two British officers of artillery, whose pamphlet has been already cited, pointed out that the line would be fatally liable to snow blocks. It would be awkward if, at a crisis {179} like that of the Great Mutiny, or that of a Russian invasion in India, the reinforcements were blockaded by snow in the wilderness between Halifax and Quebec.' What can we think of a writer who claims to be fair, and yet parades as authorities two young gentlemen whose haphazard forecast has been belied by twenty years of actual working experience? So far from being 'fatally' liable to snow block, the Intercolonial is operated during the two or three months of deep snow with less risk of delay than is incurred every day of the year by ships passing through the Suez Canal, the other most available route in an Indian Crisis. It has been my own lot to suffer a longer detention on a steamship at Ismailia, a detention accepted by the ship's officers as in the course of ordinary experience, than I can remember having met with in many years' experience of the Intercolonial.

When Mr. Smith turns from the Intercolonial, which does not pay, to the Canada Pacific, which does, we find no improvement in fairness of statement. Of the Canada Pacific he says: 'The fact is constantly overlooked in vaunting the importance of this line to the Empire, that its Eastern section passes through the State of Maine, and would, of course, be closed to troops in case of war with any power at peace with the United States.' In a note it is added: 'The Quarterly Review, for example, spoke of the Canadian Pacific Railway as running from "start to finish" over British ground, though the line was at that very moment applying for bonding privileges to the Government of {180} the United States.' This is evidently a deliberate statement. What are the facts? During the months of open navigation Montreal is the water terminus of the Canada Pacific Railway, and the only point from which transfers would be made across the continent. From Montreal to Vancouver, that is, from ocean to ocean, from 'start to finish,' the line is entirely on British soil. Connection further east with the winter ports of Halifax and St. John, has from the first been made by means of the Grand Trunk and Intercolonial lines, the route yet from 'start to finish' running over British territory alone. From the St. Lawrence there is even the alternative of a double route to the sea coast, one down the St. John valley, chiefly owned and controlled, I think, by the Canada Pacific, the other along the Gulf of St. Lawrence, while a third has been projected by the Grand Trunk, the rival of the Canada Pacific, through the heart of New Brunswick. Only a year and a half ago the Canada Pacific, to save distance, built still another line from Montreal eastward to make connection with the Intercolonial, and it is on the ground that a portion of this third line passes through the State of Maine that Mr. Smith informs English people that Canada's trans-continental railway 'would, of course, be closed to troops in case of war with any power at peace with the United States.' Whether this statement, made in a very critical point of Mr. Smith's argument, is a suppressio veri or suggestio falsi, I leave others to decide. On which side is the correct statement of {181} facts I can safely leave to the adjudication of the Canadian reader, the Canadian press, or of any person who has access to a good railway map of the Dominion. So flagrant seems to me the distortion of fact that I have sometimes wondered whether Mr. Smith was not testing the limits of that English ignorance of colonial matters of which he makes much in another part of his volume.

I must quote once more: 'In opening a trade among the provinces, a natural trade at least, these inter-provincial railroads have failed, for the simple reason that the provinces have hardly any products to exchange with each other, and that means of conveyance are futile where there is nothing to be conveyed.' The answer to this may be put into a question which business men will appreciate even if an author in his study at Toronto does not. Why is it, if there is nothing to be conveyed between the provinces, that, in addition to the Intercolonial, two competing lines have already been constructed and a third projected, all on purely business principles, to unite the maritime provinces to those of the St. Lawrence?

In his excessive eagerness to make points, Mr. Smith exposes himself to no slight suspicion of a willingness to open up unnecessarily, if not maliciously, old sores between the mother-land and the colony. He says: 'That in all diplomatic questions with the United States the interest of Canada has been sacrificed to the Imperial exigency of keeping peace with {182} the Americans is the constant theme of Canadian complaint. … By the treaty of 1783, confirming the independence of the United States, England not only resigned the territory claimed by each State of the Union severally, but abandoned to the general government immense territories "unsettled, unexplored, and unknown."' After explaining that this was partly due to ignorance, he continues: 'This is the beginning of a long and uniform story, in the course of which not only great tracts of territory, but geographical unity has been lost. To understand how deeply this iron has entered into the Canadian soul, the Englishman must turn to his map and mark out how much of geographical compactness, of military security, and of commercial convenience was lost when Britain gave up Maine. … A large portion of Minnesota, Dakota, Montana, and Washington, Canada also thinks she has wrongfully lost. These are causes of discontent; discontent may one day breed disaffection; disaffection may lead to another calamitous rupture; and instead of going forth into the world when the hour of maturity has arrived with the parent's blessing, the child may turn in anger from the parental door.'

To conjure up these historic mistakes as the cause of a possible national rupture will only raise a smile in Canada; upon readers outside of Canada who do not understand the circumstances the passage leaves a false impression. That mistakes were made most people agree; that they were partly due to the ignorance {183} of English diplomatists is true; but Canadians must admit that they were due to Canadian ignorance as well. As late as 1874 a Cabinet Minister of the Dominion on a public platform described the splendid wheat areas of the North-West as a country only fitted to be the home of the wolf and the bear. Among the separate and unsympathetic provinces, prior to confederation, there were ignorance and indifference as well as among English statesmen. 'Every intelligent Canadian now knows that most of these mistakes were far more due to the want of a nexus between the Colony and the Empire which would have brought colonial knowledge and experience to the assistance of British diplomacy. He knows that since the acceptance of this assistance as a part of the public policy of Britain, such mistakes can no longer occur, as the Fishery Award at Halifax and the Fishery Treaty at Washington, when Canadian interests were represented by Canadians, sufficiently testify; as the Behring Sea negotiations testify, in which, acting upon the information supplied by the Dominion Government, and recognizing the justice of the case, Lord Salisbury did not hesitate to say the final word which made aggressive diplomacy pause and submit to impartial arbitration.

'Disintegration, surely, is on the point of being complete,' and 'the last strand of political connection is worn almost to the last thread,' Mr. Smith exclaims, using as the illustration of his point Newfoundland's claim to make a commercial treaty of her own independently {184} of Canada. He refuses to see what others see, that the invitation to Newfoundland to have her interests directly represented in the arbitration with France; the fact that Canada has been thus represented at Halifax, at Washington, in the Behring Sea difficulties; the formal introduction, in short, of colonial opinion and knowledge into national diplomacy, marks the creation of new threads of connection, new bonds of union, which promise to be permanent, because constructed on true and primary political principles.

It is, I think, a fatal flaw in Mr. Smith's discussion of the Canadian Question, a fatal comment on his claim to have 'done his best to take his readers to the heart of it by setting the whole case before them,' that he makes no mention of this decisive change in national policy, or of the consequent change in the Canadian mind, which, if not reconciled to losses in the past, has no reason to dread them in the future, and in this confidence is content. That he should treat as present and gravely irritating, grievances which have become purely historical, is unfair and misleading.

If the difficulties with the United States which have arisen on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts are not settled amicably and justly, it will not be from any want of willingness on the part of British people or Canadians. Britain and Canada agreed to a settlement of the St Lawrence Fishery Question which an American Democratic President and Cabinet accepted as fair. A Republican Senate rejected it as a move in the party {185} game, and has preferred to leave it open ever since. Any reader of the correspondence in the Behring Sea Question can judge for himself on which side was the spirit of conciliation and compromise. Only in the last resort did Lord Salisbury utter the warning words which seem to have done more than anything else to prepare the way for fair adjudication upon the points at issue.

How curiously and completely Mr. Smith is out of touch and sympathy with the organizing movements of the British world: how oddly inconsistent he can be even while pressing his own theories, one or two further illustrations will suffice to show. Apparently he looks upon Australian Federation as a step in the wrong direction. 'We cannot help once more warning the Australians that Federation under the Elective system involves not merely the union of the several states under a central government with powers superior to them all; but the creation of Federal parties with all the faction, demagogism, and corruption which party conflicts involve over a new field and on a vastly extended scale. It is surprising how little this obvious and momentous consideration appears to be present to the minds of statesmen when the question of Federation is discussed[4].' Warnings like this are repeated. Anxious as he seems to be for the unification of the American continent by the absorption of Canada into the United States, Mr. Smith would apparently urge Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland to avoid even the example of Canadian {186} confederation in gaining for themselves effective unity, although he knows, that for them confederation means the freedom of the continental market and the same breaking down of tariff walls which is the one supreme bribe he has to offer to Canadians in exchange for the surrender of their nationality. Another turn of the intellectual wheel and even American unification is forgotten in a new ideal of disintegration. 'There is no reason why Ontario should not be a nation if she were minded to be one. Her territory is compact. Her population is already as large as that of Denmark, and likely to be a good deal larger, probably as large as that of Switzerland; and it is sufficiently homogeneous if she can only repress French encroachment on her eastern border. She would have no access to the sea: no more has Switzerland, Hungary, or Servia … The same thing might have been said with regard to the maritime Provinces—supposing them to have formed a legislative union—Quebec, British Columbia, or the North West. In the North West, rating its cultivable area at the lowest, there would be room for no mean nation.' This passage may explain to English or Australian readers why Mr. Smith has no acceptance in the Dominion as the prophet of Canada's political future. One remembers with astonishment that it is the writer of these lines who, on the one hand, assures Canadians that they cannot resist absorption into the United States, and who, on the other, tells the advocates of British unity that they are impracticable dreamers.

{187}

After this it does not seem surprising to find that Mr. Smith himself proceeds to knock away the foundations on which his own argument on the Canadian question has been built? These foundations are practically two in number—the fear of war on the American continent arising from irritation at the presence of Britain there—and the necessity for Canada of commercial intercourse with her own continent. These are the reasons why the Empire is to be disintegrated, and Canada is to seek a new national connection.

Following upon this we read: 'Of conquest there is absolutely no thought. The Southern violence and the Western lawlessness which forced the Union into the war of 1812 are things of the past. The American people could not now be brought to invade the homes of an unoffending neighbour. They have no craving for more territory. They know that while a despot who annexes may govern through a viceroy with a strong hand, a republic which annexes must incorporate, and would only weaken itself by incorporating disaffection. The special reason for wishing to bring Canada at once into the Union, that she might help to balance the Slave Power, has with the Slave Power departed. So far as the Americans are concerned, Canada is absolute mistress of her own destiny.'

Canada, therefore, in Mr. Smith's later opinion, has nothing to fear from war with the United States.

Once more, discussing the McKinley tariff, we read:—,

{188}

'However, the manifest faults of the measure, combined with the enormous waste of public money incurred in baling out surplus revenue to avert a reform of the tariff, have proved too much for the superstition or the sufferance of the American people. Symptoms of a change of opinion had even before appeared. New England is now praying for free admission of raw materials. The Republican party in the United States is the war party, kept on foot for the sake of maintaining the war tariff in the interest of the protected manufactures. It has made a desperate effort to retain power and to rivet its policy on the nation by means which have estranged from it the best of its supporters; but in the late elections it has received a signal, and probably decisive overthrow. What all the preachings of economic science were powerless to effect has been brought about at last by the reduction of the public debt, and of the necessity for duties as revenue. A new commercial era has apparently dawned for the United States, and the lead of the United States will be followed in time by the rest of the world.'

This means, if words mean anything, that in Mr. Smith's opinion, the United States are soon to throw open their markets to the world, and so, without political humiliation, Canada will have the commercial freedom of her own continent. One asks why 'Canada and the Canadian Question' was ever written.

An explanation may perhaps be found. Mr. Smith quotes (page 247) Sir Henry Taylor's opinion that {189} the North American colonies are useless and dangerous possessions for Britain, and thus goes on to remark: 'It may be said that this was written in 1852 and that since that time we have had new lights. Some persons have had new lights, but those who have not are no more unpatriotic in saying that the possession and its uses are as dust in the balance compared with its evil contingencies than was Sir Henry Taylor.' That is to say, though within the last half century the relations of the empire have absolutely changed, though the safety of its enormously multiplied commerce has come to depend on steam and coaling stations in every corner of the world, though the colonies have become great self-governing and self-sustaining communities, though the world has been recreated by steam and electricity, Mr. Smith frankly admits that these facts have given him no 'new lights' on questions of empire. He is living among the memories of the past; he devotes himself to the task of maintaining a theory based upon facts which have become fossilized under the drift of half a century of extraordinary change. Even if we are prepared in such a case to admit his sincerity, we have a right from the outset to challenge any claim to adequacy of treatment or correctness of judgment.

One more criticism of British Federation may be referred to as illustrating the inconsistency in argument of which a clever writer is capable:—

'Are the negroes of the West Indies to be included? {190} Is Quashee to vote on imperial policy?' says Mr. Smith, in fine scorn of the British federationist, who doubtless has no special fear or thought about a carefully restricted and controlled coloured vote in a few scattered colonies: a vote which in the aggregate represents not more than a very minute fraction of one per cent. of the enfranchised citizenship of the Empire. Strangely out of place, however, does this scorn seem when we find the same pages embody an argument for Canadians throwing in their political lot with a Republic where the Quashee vote, unconditionally and irrevocably granted, will far outweigh their own; where it will become enormously influential as soon as the free exercise is permitted of the rights granted by constitutional law, as, one would think, must ultimately be the case in a country which claims to give exceptional political freedom. Equally inconsistent does it seem when placed beside the romantic political enterprize to which Mr. Smith would commit Canadians. He says, 'The native American element in which the tradition of self-government resides is hard-pressed by the foreign element untrained to self-government, and stands in need of the reinforcement which the entrance of Canada into the Union would bring it[5].' Nay, more, Mr. Smith wishes Canada to enter the Union for Britain's sake, that she may 'neutralize the votes of her enemies[6].' Does he reflect that if the Canadian {191} vote chanced to be barely insufficient to neutralize the votes of Britain's enemies, Canada would, as I have elsewhere pointed out, be constitutionally forced into active hostility to the mother-land? The path which he points out has on it possible natural dishonour from which Canadians will instinctively shrink. They will prefer to retain the right to neutralize the influence of Britain's enemies, if the necessity arise, by other means, such as they have found effective before.

[1] A Times' editorial has spoken of Mr. Smith's views about the relations of Canada to the Empire as 'one of those crazes that are scarcely intelligible in a man of great intellectual power.'

[2] Lord Brassey, Naval Annual, 1890

[3] Canada and the Canadian Question, p. 260.

[4] Canada and the Canadian Question, p. 232.

[5] Canada and the Canadian Question, p. 274.

[6] Idem, p. 269.

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CHAPTER VIII.

AUSTRALIA.

I HAVE been able to speak of Canada as a unit; as already ripe for the next stage in its political development; and of its people as practically familiar with the application of the Federal principle. The Australian colonies, which, taken together, come next to Canada in size and population, have not reached this point, but are struggling towards it. Yielding to what appears to be the general tendency of modern political development, and following the example of the United States and Canada, the Australian people are wrestling with the problems of local federation. With two great precedents to guide them the task might seem an easy one. But they meet with the old difficulty in learning the art of give and take; in overcoming the same narrow but often sincere spirit of provincialism which obstructed the adoption of a federal system in the United States and Canada, the spirit which will have to be met and overcome in working out any system of British unity. It is, however, a significant and hopeful fact that the growth of the individual colonies has inspired in all the best minds the aspiration for some larger {193} Australian patriotism than any single colony can give. The problem of federating Australia presents some features different from those met with in the United States and Canada. The whole territory of a vast continent is divided among five colonies, each of which has therefore in area the proportions of an empire or kingdom, and far exceeds in size the states of the American Union or the provinces of Canada. Each has a sea frontage of its own, and is thus independent of all others for external communication. These divisions, again, have grown up under a system of what may be called state socialism. The government of each colony takes the chief part in developing its resources, by the construction of Railways, irrigation systems and other public works, involving the creation of large public debts. Thus immense importance has been given to the functions of the individual colony, functions which the colony would be unwilling to resign, and which the Federal Government would be rash to undertake.

I mention these new features and difficulties, because in dealing with them new light will be thrown on federal problems. Each accomplished federation makes more clear the steps by which the next and higher one is to be attained, and the principles by which it is to be governed.

It will be necessary to speak of the three insular divisions of the Australasian colonies separately, but it is in regarding them as a whole that we get an adequate idea of the great place which they hold {194} and may continue to hold in the Empire. Their populations are, and will continue to be, more purely British than any countries yet occupied by Anglo-Saxon people. Ninety-five per cent. of the inhabitants, whether born in the colonies or in the mother-land, are British. There is here nothing to parallel the elimination of the Anglo-Saxon element which is taking place so rapidly in the United States. There is no French province, with its individual lines of development, as in Canada. There is no large Dutch element, as in South Africa. The coloured population which may be found necessary for the cultivation of the tropical north, will be strictly subordinated to the necessities of British development, and there will never be in Australia, as there is in the United States, an immense coloured vote to confuse national politics. As a base of maritime power the Australasian colonies manifestly furnish to the nation of which they are a part an opportunity for maintaining a supreme and indisputable control over a vast area of the southern seas. Their harbours, some of which are amongst the most capacious in the world are yet for the most part capable of secure defence. Several are already supplied with docks, spacious enough to admit for repair the largest ships afloat. The more important are already strongly fortified. Melbourne is pronounced by competent authorities to be one of the best defended ports in the Empire. In New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania and New Zealand, great neighbouring coal {195} deposits increase the value of the harbours as stations for either carrying on or protecting trade. Still more important, they have behind them great and increasing populations, capable of supplying adequate means of local defence. It is manifest that such colonies may be a great element of strength in any nation, and especially in one which chiefly depends for security on naval power. Along with South Africa in the Southern Hemisphere they complete what I have before called the quadrilateral of maritime position which in the Northern Hemisphere is represented by the United Kingdom itself and Canada, with the commanding outlook of the latter upon the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Australasia and South Africa, however, projected as they are far into the water hemisphere of the globe, give a far more complete monoply of naval position than do the northern angles of this quadrilateral. A great sea power enjoying the right to their exclusive use would in any conflict have an immeasurable advantage in maintaining command of the ocean.

The facts which indicate the industrial relation of Australasia to the rest of the Empire are scarcely less significant than those connected with naval position.

In the production of one great article of manufacture, wool, it easily leads the world, both in respect of quantity and quality. In its singular adaptation for pastoral pursuits it seems the natural complement of a great manufacturing country like the United Kingdom, and of a cold country like Canada. Its {196} capacity for supplying meat as well as wool to the United Kingdom has increased greatly during the last few years and appears capable of indefinite expansion.

The production of gold, amounting to more than £300,000,000 in less than fifty years; of silver, copper, tin and other metals, which in vast quantities find their chief market in Great Britain, indicate another important line of connection with British industry. In proportion to population the Australasian colonies take from Great Britain more than any other countries in the world; they are able to do so because they sell to her more than any other countries. Without precise figures to justify the assertion one is yet quite safe in saying that no two states in the American Union, even those lying most closely together, have such proportionately large trade relations with each other as have the Australasian colonies and the United Kingdom, situated at opposite sides of the globe.

Australia's apparent isolation has suggested to many the possibility and expediency of her aiming at an independent national life. A little study of her relations with the rest of the world shows that her isolation, at any rate, is purely imaginary. If the first glance leads us to think that the colonies most remote from Britain are likely to have the least connection with her, facts soon show us that they really have the closest of all. There is a very plain argument which goes to prove that distance under {197} the conditions of modern commerce, produces a greater community of interest than contiguity. In Canada I have put historical bias in the forefront of the factors determining towards national unity, a bias so strong that in the future, as in the past, it seems likely to defy any geographical considerations which oppose it, and to force even commercial relations, to some extent, if need be, into its own direction. In Australia the prior place must be given to geographical situation and its influence upon commercial relationship. In her interests and connections Australia is, in an extraordinary degree, European and Asiatic. Four-fifths at least of all her external commerce is with Britain or with European countries chiefly through Britain. This trade passes along waterways the safety of which depends upon the movements of European powers. It is an essential element in the prosperity of the people. A trade at present small but prospectively great in the Indian and China seas gives Australia a deep interest in Asiatic questions.

An able Australian writer lately said in the Times, 'Australia is one of the least self-contained countries in the world. It is a wonderful producer of raw material. But it must trade off this raw material. … A dozen big "stations" would supply wool enough to clothe every man, woman and child in Australia. How is the big remainder, almost the whole, to be disposed of? We must sell it in the other hemisphere. We have no choice. … The fact is we cannot {198} produce all we want to consume, and we cannot consume all that we can easily produce. … We must sell our surplus abroad. It would not be worth while disturbing the deposit at Broken Hill only to pack away millions of silver coins in vaults.' He goes on to say: 'England could do without Australia better than Australia could do without England. The one imaginable event would mean something like ruin; the other, only disaster. England's prosperity is rooted in many countries, in so many that she is always able to turn a brave face in any single direction.'

Leading merchants and financiers of Australia have said to me that six months stoppage of the English trade would mean the closing up of three-fourths of the commercial and financial houses of the country. The rapid expansion of this trade every day increases the importance of the Suez Canal and the Cape of Good Hope routes, the two channels along which Australian commerce chiefly flows. Another field for trade is opening up in the China seas and in India. For a people thus related to Europe, Africa, and Asia, the Eastern Question, with all that it involves, has a deep and permanent interest. The question of whether Great Britain or Russia is in India and holds command of Indian waters is vital to Australia's position in the Southern seas.

On this point the Melbourne Age not long since said: 'The growth of Australia into a nation will bring with it the burdens of a nation, among which {199} the burden of foreign relations is the worst, especially if the relationship concerns a hostile power. Australia is already concerned in the Russian advance on India. …The possession of the Indian seaboard means so much to the safety of these colonies that the mere mention of it is sufficient to awaken attention on the subject: for if the peace of Australia demands that foreign nations shall not post themselves in the Pacific, still more vital is it that Russian guns shall not point over the Indian ocean, or Russian cruisers gather in Indian harbours. Australia shares in the danger, and is interested in meeting it, whether from the Imperial or the local point of view. Even as an independent state, Australia could not afford to agree to an occupation of India by Russia; in fact, our danger would be all the greater. If the Russians reach the sea-front the menace to Australia will be intolerable, and Australia has its own interest in preventing this. The defence of Australia begins on the hills outside Herat, and there already the attack has begun.' I have preferred to quote an Australian opinion upon this point to giving my own.

But even the questions connected with the trade routes and India do not exhaust the European interests of Australia. She has Germany and France at her doors, the one in New Guinea and the other at New Caledonia and the New Hebrides. With both she has had irritating points of difference and to the presence of both in the Pacific she objects. {200} The nearness of the great Dutch colonies of Java and the neighbouring islands is not now a subject of anxiety, but should the course of European politics ever lead to the absorption of Holland by Germany, an apparently not impossible contingency, the Dutch colonies would become more serious factors in Australasian affairs, for a great European naval and military power would control a native population which numbers 20,000,000, inhabiting islands which stretch along and lie close to the uninhabited side of Australia. The present able administrator of New Guinea, Sir William McGregor, who has long made a special study of the political relations of the Pacific, expressed to me his opinion that Australasian independence, with the consequent withdrawal of Britain's protection, would almost certainly result in French and German efforts to secure positions in Australasia at the expense of the colonies.

The defence of her sea-borne commerce, greater in proportion to population, as has been said, than that of any other country in the world, must always be a foremost thought in the Australian mind. On the conditions which will render that defence secure military authorities are practically agreed. Speaking of the great naval stations which command the principal trade routes, Major General Sir Bevan Edwardes said after his late careful study of Australian defence: 'It will thus be seen how mutually dependent the scattered parts of the Empire must necessarily be. The mother-country in maintaining {201} these fortified stations affords direct protection to Australian interests. The Cape Colony, in bearing a share in the defence of the most important of these stations, lends a hand to Australia in the event of war. Hong Kong, Singapore, Ceylon and Mauritius, in the large contributions they have made to defence, and the considerable annual sums applied to military purposes, are not only defending themselves, but the interests of the whole nation, including those of Australia. Canada, by the construction of that grand line of communication, the Canada Pacific Railway—the importance of which will be fully shown in our next great war—and when she has completed the defences of Esquimault, will in the same way aid in the general national defence.' He adds, and I venture to italicize his words: 'Australia, as being the most remote of all portions of the Empire, and having the largest trade routes, would gain more in war from the existence of these stations than any other group of colonies. The idea that local defence will suffice for the needs of a commercial country, and that the interests of Australasia end with her territorial waters, is utterly false. The real defence of the Australasian colonies and their trade will be secured by fleets thousands of miles from their shores[1].'

Once more, China, with its population of 400,000,000, is a close neighbour to Australia with its 4,000,000. Only narrow seas separate them. The decisive objection felt in every part of Australia to the immigration {202} of Chinese, and the steps taken to prevent it, point to relations which might easily lead to serious rupture between the two countries. I have heard sober-minded Australians, including cabinet ministers, affirm that for a long time to come Australia of itself would be absolutely powerless to offer any adequate resistance to an irritated China if she used her considerable fleet for the annoyance of Australian commerce, or if she chose to flood with a Mongolian population the vast unoccupied areas of the North and West coasts of the continent, which are incapable of defence by land forces from the colonies. The idea is sometimes brought forward in Australia that England's desire to keep on good terms with China and Australia's resolution to prevent a large Chinese immigration, bring Imperial and colonial interests into hopeless conflict on a fundamental point of policy. On the other hand it may be fairly questioned whether Australia, without the weight of British influence and the strength of British ironclads behind her, would have escaped serious consequences through her impulsive action in denying international rights to Chinamen. But leaving aside this question, it is still clear that so long as China is a naval power of considerable strength in seas frequented by Australian commerce, so long Australia cannot forget her existence and neighbourhood. An independent Australia would be compelled at once to develop a navy equal at least to that which she meets in those seas, otherwise she would have no means of {203} checking or chastising the insolence of the meanest Chinese junk which interfered with Australian trade or attacked an Australian ship.

It is manifest, then, that Australia's position is far from being one of isolation. Conditions more different from those under which the United States started upon their career of independence it is difficult to imagine. Almost the last act of Britain before the Revolution was to crush the only other European power which had a footing in America, and might prove a menace to the colonies. Wolfe won at Quebec in 1759—and Independence was declared in 1776. From 1789 till 1815 the whole of Europe was plunged, in strife so desperate that the United States were left free to work out their own development as no nation had ever been left to do so before. Nevertheless the short war of 1812 ruined American commerce, paralyzed industry, and closed by far the larger number of American business houses. It showed that isolation and an ability to ward off actual invasion did not give immunity from the calamities of war.

It seems to me that two inferences, most misleading when applied to the present condition of the British world, are constantly drawn from the results of the American Revolution, and the growth of the United States.

In the first place, because Britain's power in the world was not seriously affected by the loss of the American colonies, it is supposed that she would suffer as little from the loss of those which she now {204} possesses. No inference could be more mistaken. When the American colonies were gone, there still remained space in which a new colonial empire could be founded; there was still room to find bases of maritime power and commercial influence on all the great oceans, and in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. England at once found it necessary to avail herself of this opportunity. There is no chance left now to found a third colonial empire. The other nations of Europe, finding out too late for themselves the advantage which England had gained, have appropriated what small portions were open for their occupation.

Again, the fact that the United States have in the course of a century grown into a world-power of the first magnitude tends to mislead the imagination in forecasting the future of the colonies. Let Canada and Australia, it is thought, make themselves independent, and the history of the United States will be repeated; their greatness equalled in each case. Many circumstances unite to make such a result impossible.

First, the physical conditions of the countries themselves. A Canadian who has made some study of Australia may perhaps be allowed to express frankly his conviction that neither country can possibly look forward to anything that will for a moment compare with the extraordinary increment of population in the United States. He may add that to him this is a subject for congratulation, rather than regret.

{205}

Delightful as are Canadian homes, and all the surroundings of Canadian life to those who understand and have been brought up among them, or to those who come from a similar climate, there is no doubt that the long winter, the short summer, and the necessity which both impose for strenuous exertion, render the country unattractive to vast masses of those emigrants of less stamina who pass so freely into parts of the United States. We may fairly hope that in the long run the race advantage of the slower growth will be great, and an abundant recompense for the less rapid increase of population.

Climate is, in fact, the controlling element in a persistent process of natural selection. It excludes the negro from being any considerable factor in the population. The Italian organ-grinder and all his kind flee southward at the approach of winter. Only on the Pacific coast does the Chinaman find a congenial home. Cities like New York, St. Louis, Cincinnati, or New Orleans attract even the vagrant population of Italy and other countries of Southern Europe: Canada, to her own ultimate advantage, repels it. Canada will belong to the sturdy races of the North-Saxon and Celt, Scandinavian, Dane and Northern German, fighting their way under conditions sometimes rather more severe than those to which they have been accustomed in their old homes. Selection implies less rapid increment; quality is balanced against quantity.

The obstacles to rapid growth which Canada finds {206} in northern cold Australia meets with in southern heat, in a continental configuration which deprives the country of an adequate river system, and in isolation from European centres of emigration.

The geography of the continent presents features which must be considered in forecasting the future of the country. We often see elaborate calculations, based upon the rate of increase during the last fifty years, which are intended to prove that a rapid increment of population, parallel to that which has taken place in the United States, may be anticipated. I found that more prudent thinkers in Australia reject such estimates as utterly fallacious on merely physical grounds, and facts support this different view. With a circumference of about 8000, and a diameter of more than 2000 miles, it is very doubtful if Australia can ever have a great city more than two or three hundred miles from the sea-shore. If Broken Hill be quoted as an exception, it would seem to confirm rather than weaken this view. A large output of silver, amounting already to many tons per week, has attracted to the spot and supports a population of twenty-five or thirty thousand people. But even the presence of so large a population has not led to the cultivation of the soil, and almost every article of food is brought from a distance, while a supply of water itself is only obtained with difficulty. During a recent period of drought, water was carried to Broken Hill by rail.

In America, as soon as the Alleghanies were {207} passed, the flood of immigration poured out upon the great river valleys of the Ohio, Mississippi, and Missouri, and the prairies of the far West, capable of at once absorbing millions of people. Nothing of this kind is possible for Australia. There the want of water in the interior, the partly desert and partly pastoral character of the country, are limiting dense population to the rim of the continent. Even there it is curiously concentrated in the cities. Irrigation, with the intense culture which it makes possible, may cause a considerable change over limited areas, and artesian wells will do much to give steadiness to the pastoral industry, but after all such allowances have been made it seems perfectly clear that the centre of Australia will be conquered but slowly, and will never be densely inhabited. It is hoped that by a united effort among the colonies a railway may be thrown across the continent from North to South; one from East to West would apparently be impracticable, and the connection between the opposite coasts will be chiefly maintained by Sea. Over vast areas from five to ten acres of land must be allowed for each sheep pastured, and it is doubtful if the capacity of much of this land to carry stock can be sensibly increased. The care of sheep and cattle can be carried on with great profit and on an immense scale by an exceedingly limited population, and a large part of Australia must always be chiefly pastoral. I suspect that in the mining industry also the proportion of workers to the volume of production {208} is comparatively small. Three hundred millions of gold taken from the soil since the first discovery of the precious metal less than fifty years ago, and vast public and private borrowings in addition of outside capital have given a great impulse to settlement in the past. But the conditions of the last half century have clearly been abnormal, and can scarcely be taken as an index of the future.

There are, however, other aspects of Australian life which mark this contrast with America even more decisively than do the prevailing industries and physical conditions to which I have referred. The coloured element, which in the United States now numbers about 8,000,000, and forms so large a fraction of the whole population, Australia rejects entirely. Neither Chinaman, Hindoo coolie, nor Kanaka will ever be permitted to become to Australia what the negro is to the United States, a considerable and permanent addition to dense population. Scarcely less strong is the objection to the indiscriminate immigration of cheap competitive labour such as that which has filled up America. The arrival at Melbourne, Sydney or Brisbane of half a dozen steamships with a living freight such as has been discharged at New York from the steerage of Trans-atlantic liners almost every day for the last quarter of a century would today bring New South Wales, Victoria, or Queensland to the edge of revolution. Assisted emigration has come to an end, save in the two younger colonies. For years {209} the great trans-continental Railway companies and Trans-atlantic steamship companies of the United States have acted as the most energetic emigration agencies in every country of Europe, with the one object of pouring a flood of population, without the slightest reference to its quality, over the lands lying along the newly built Railway lines. An Australian Government which tried in this manner to make its State-built Railways productive, would soon find its occupation of governing gone.

That 'pulling in of the latch string' and closing the door which the United States have decided upon reluctantly and late, Australia has begun almost at the commencement of her career. She has determined that her population shall be select. This policy exposes the working man of Australia to the sarcasm that he is quite prepared to repeat in his vast continent that selfishness in respect of land which he is rather fond of denouncing in the landlord of the old world. On the other hand, the United Kingdom has, early and late, sent too many social failures to Australia to justify either surprise or indignation at Australia's aversion to unacceptable immigration. We need not quarrel with Australia's decision in this matter, for it is one which a country has a right to make. It secures more perfect social and political assimilation of new material and avoids the great dangers which flow from placing large political powers in hands unfitted to use them. But if select, then not vast in numbers. Judging from present indications and {210} tendencies Australia is likely to have settled along its seaboard a slowly increasing but singularly wealthy population, whose prosperity will be ministered to by the highly remunerative mining and pastoral industries of the thinly settled interior.

This sea-board of the continent, the rim of which alone is or is likely to be thickly settled is 8000 miles long. A country so situated and populated is manifestly exposed, in an unusual degree, to naval attack. It is this sense of exposure which has in large measure promoted the idea of Federation among the colonies themselves. It has stimulated the work of harbour defence, important for the whole Empire as for Australia itself. It has led to the joint arrangement between the mother-land and the various colonies for an addition to the Australian Squadron. The terms of this arrangement are worthy of note. The various colonies jointly agree to contribute the sum of £126,000 per annum, partly as interest on the capital employed in construction, partly towards the maintenance of a certain number of armed ships to be reserved exclusively for service in Australian waters. To carry out this arrangement the amount invested by the mother-country in the ships, seven in number, already constructed and in active service, has been close upon a million sterling. The skilled officers and trained seamen are also supplied from the Royal Navy. It is specially agreed that any expense incurred beyond £126,000 shall be borne by the Imperial Treasury, that the ordinary strength {211} of the Australian Squadron shall not be reduced on account of this local addition to naval defence, and that during the ten years over which the arrangement extends the seven ships cannot be withdrawn from Australian waters. Surely no young country with an increasing necessity for coast defence due to enlarged wealth and commerce ever secured it on terms to compare with these. No better illustration could be given of the advantage which the colonies may derive from joint action with the mother-land.

The Australasian colonies aspire, and reasonably aspire, to dominance in the Pacific. That manifestly depends on having at command the naval power which can be best secured by co-operation with the Empire. The creation of substantial interests in the heart of the Pacific, such as would be involved in the construction of cable, postal and commercial routes, linking Australia and New Zealand with Canada in one direction, with the West Indies and Great Britain in another (when the Panama route is open), interests which the whole Empire would be concerned in securing, would do more than anything else to give effect to Australian aspirations.

However threatening or annoying the presence of Germany and France in the Southern Seas might be to an independent Australia before she had arisen to a position of great naval strength, I cannot but think that every German and French station in the Pacific, so long as the Empire remains one, is a guarantee of peace. So overwhelming would be the advantage {212} in naval and coaling bases, and in reserves of fighting force, enjoyed by a united British people in those seas, that any European nation could not but expect that a declaration of war against the British Empire would be followed by an immediate attempt on our part to sweep the enemy from the few ports which he might hold in the Pacific; and it cannot be doubted that such an attempt would be made with every probability of success.

There are those who think that Australian Federation will not make for British unity, but will instead prove the prelude to Australian Independence. I believe that this is an entirely mistaken view. But were it true; did the choice for Australians lie between Federation with the Empire and Federation among the colonies themselves, I unhesitatingly say that the true course would be to accept the latter. Until Australia can act and speak as a unit, she is incapable of deciding wisely and conclusively upon her own destiny; she is not in a position to take her right place and exert her due influence in a federation of nations. A number of colonies grouped as are those of Australia, which failed to see the advantage of a common political life, or were unwilling to make the sacrifices necessary to secure it, would remain in a state of political unrest and incomplete development which would render them a weakness rather than a strength in a great national combination. Much as I believe in the advantages which would come to Australia, to the other colonies, to Great Britain and {213} to the world at large from British unity, I yet am convinced that it would be better that Australia should be isolated from the Empire than that she should be divided within her own boundaries. This opinion is entertained, I feel sure, by ninety-nine out of every hundred advocates of a United Empire.

In Canada, however, confederation has not had the effect of weakening attachment to the Empire. By giving the people a larger political judgment it has made them weigh more seriously the responsibilities of national existence and made them value more highly connection with a powerful state.

Meanwhile the contest going on in Australia is the best of all preparations for the acceptance of the wider idea of national unity, since it leads to the accurate definition of principles, and a careful balancing of the gain and loss involved in large organization.

Canadian experience leads us to think that Australian Federation would lend itself to national union in another way. In Canada before 1867, the date of Confederation, the Colonial Office was continually appearing as a factor in provincial politics. Whatever trouble arose, Downing Street was to blame, and party passion vented all its bitterness upon this official representative of England's policy. It is safe to say that Confederation eliminated the Colonial Office as an active, or at any rate, an irritating factor from Canadian party politics. It was found that by far the larger number of those questions which gave rise {214} to friction with the Colonial Office were transferred to the domain of the Dominion government; that the difficulties were such as were necessarily incident to the management of a large state; that Canadians had to fight out among themselves disputes once fought out with an English minister. It is a striking fact that since Canada attained to a united voice on public questions, since confederation imposed upon her the necessity of dealing with internal difficulties and forming a large judgment on common affairs, not only has no serious difficulty arisen with the Colonial Office, but the deliberately expressed opinion of the Canadian Government has, as a rule, given a general direction to British policy in dealing with external matters which concerned Canada.

In one or two of the Australian colonies the Colonial Office is still heard of occasionally as it was in Canada thirty or forty years ago; the Colonial Secretary of the day is a frequent subject of political lampoon; denunciation of his policy is a part of the stock-in-trade of the party politician. To say that this denunciation is affected rather than real is not enough; it is at times a very real irritant between English and Australian feeling. The federation of Australia will, in my opinion, remove this irritant as federation did in Canada, and by eliminating petty differences enable people to take larger views and have fewer suspicions in national affairs. If the Federal Government of Australia reserve the right, as Canada has done, to appoint the governors of provinces, there will {215} be no opportunity for disputes such as that which arose with Queensland a few years ago. If the right be not reserved, a colony will have little room to complain about the manner of its exercise by the Colonial office.

I have pointed out the interest which it seems to me the Australian colonies have in all matters which affect the rule of the Empire in the East, and especially in the question whether Britain or Russia is in India. Military authorities, on the other hand, are agreed, and the fact is, indeed, manifest to any observer, that in the event of a great struggle for the possession of India, the advantage for the Empire as a whole would be immeasurable in having behind India the colonies of Australia and New Zealand, as a base of supply and support, even if they did not send a man into the field. The suggested creation of a great national arsenal in one of the southern colonies as a safe source of rapid supply of war material in case of any temporary break in the connection of India and the colonies with the United Kingdom is a proposal which recommends itself to the common sense of British people, who will have more at stake in the next great war than any nation ever risked before. In the single matter of equipping cavalry the colonies might well turn the scale in an Eastern war. Already both New Zealand and Australia export horses in considerable numbers to India, and indeed already furnish the bulk of the remounts for our Indian cavalry. The surplus stock {216} to be drawn upon is becoming great enough to stand almost any drain, and with the attention now given in the colonies to horse breeding quality is constantly improving. The command of men which the nation has in India, and of horses in Australia, would counterbalance anything that Russia can draw from the steppes of Tartary.

In the matter of food supplies, too, the colonies might play an important part. Army contracts for tinned meats are now filled by the great meat preserving factories, and the capacity of the vast pastures of Queensland and the farms of New Zealand to furnish food of this kind is practically unlimited. There remains to be noticed one all-important fact. The original acquisition of India, as the highest authorities now admit, depended upon Britain's easy access to its coasts by sea. With the Australian colonies and South Africa under the national flag that access could be easily maintained in the face of all comers. The permanence of the British position in India may be considered as resting very largely on this issue.

Whether in a critical contest for the possession of India Australia would contribute men, as well as supplies, may be left to conjecture. But looking at all that would be at stake for the colonies of the South, the failure to respond to a real call of need against Russia would indicate some falling off in that 'saving common sense' which has hitherto inclined British people to challenge enemies on the furthest {217} frontier rather than await them at their own doors. An Australian opinion has already been given upon this subject. A contingent of Australian troops sent to the Soudan may be put to the credit of impulsive national enthusiasm; a contingent one day on the frontier of Afghanistan might well be the outcome of deliberate and far-sighted Australian policy.

I attach very little importance to the opinion, sometimes expressed, that in view of the rapid increase of a native-born population in Australia, any measures looking towards national unity should be hurried forward before the generation born in the United Kingdom had passed away or lost its controlling influence. Other reasons there are for early movement, but not this one. The idea of national unity must win on its own merits. The growth of a native-born population may or may not make for consolidation, but it is on the judgment and sentiment of such a population that the strength of any union must ultimately depend. Meanwhile we may remember that four-fifths of the population of Canada is native-born; the fact has not weakened in the slightest degree the closeness of sympathy with Great Britain and the Empire.

Of the many ardent advocates of national unity, everywhere scattered throughout the Dominion, by far the larger proportion consists of native Canadians. So I believe it will ultimately be in Australia. The longer history of Canada, the more severe conditions of that history, seem to me to have given a greater {218} maturity and definiteness of political thought in Canada than in Australia.

It was often pointed out to me in Australia, by the older inhabitants, and particularly the older politicians, that among the un-travelled younger people of the colonies there was at present an extraordinarily exaggerated opinion of the absolute and relative importance of Australia in the world. A stranger naturally hesitates to generalize on the truth of such a criticism, though marking individual illustrations. I had the privilege of addressing a gathering of young men of the Sydney University. In a debate which followed one of the students asked: 'What single thing have people in England better than we Australians have here?' The manifest sincerity with which the question was asked made the remark deeply interesting—almost touching. The attitude of mind is accounted for by the lack of some standard of comparison close at hand. England has measured her strength with too many rivals to overrate her place in the world. Canada has had a great neighbour to force upon her a sense of proportion. The United States themselves emerged from the great war of Secession with a temper curiously modest and moderate as compared with the spread-eagleism which prevailed in the years when the country had known little but continuous prosperity, when its strength had not been tested by trial, and when a republican form of government was supposed to be a guarantee against all the ills from which monarchies were wont to suffer. {219} The remarkable conditions under which Australia has been developed, with no strong native races against which to struggle—with external enemies kept at a distance by British ironclads, or by fear of the British name, and with suddenly gained wealth almost without precedent in history—sufficiently account for any over-confident attitude on the part of very young Australians. This, time is sure to rectify. Political experience gives political perspective. Out-side of this it would be difficult to discover anything in the mass of Australians to indicate that they were likely to be different from Englishmen or Canadians in loyalty to a large nationality. I say the mass of Australians, for it would be idle to ignore the fact that another current of thought exists.

In two of the Australian colonies, New South Wales and Queensland, some journals are found which make it their business to cultivate an anti-British and separatist feeling, and it must be admitted that they give themselves to their task with great and unflagging energy. It is very difficult to estimate accurately the range of their influence. I found the most divergent opinions held upon the point by well-informed Australians themselves, some looking upon them, and the idea which they represented, as forces that would have to be reckoned with in the future: others regarding them as unworthy of notice, and without any permanent influence. Certainly in strength of language they have no parallel in any other part of the British world, or in the United States. British people {220} outside of Australia may be interested in knowing something of their tone and aim. I select a comparatively moderate passage. 'What does it [British Federation] offer us in exchange for our ideals and our aspirations, and our sympathies and our interests? … It offers us only an unwieldy Empire, crusted over with fungi, rotting with inequalities, governed by a class which is blown out with Privilege and Pride, that ignores the Spirit of the Age and clings to the brutal Past. In this Empire our Australia will be swamped, under it she would be buried; in it our inspiration to lift again the torch of Liberty would be smothered and drowned. We do not want it and we will not have it. Our Australia shall be as free from foreign control as is the sunshine that the Australian loves; as is the billowing sea that surges eternally around her shores. She shall in herself be complete, in sympathy with all, in dependence upon none. … We have no interest in British Trade and still less in the maintenance of the Empire. We do not care who owns India; we hope that if any more opium wars come about the white ensign will be blown out of Chinese waters; nothing would please us better than to hear that the Spaniards had retaken Gibraltar and the Germans Heligoland and that the huge facade of commercial aggression and oligarchic robbery had come down with a crash.'

This passage fairly represents a kind of political pabulum which is dealt out very freely and finds an audience in Sydney and Brisbane. For the most {221} part it is furnished, not by native Australians, but by imported talent. In Sydney a higher grade of newspaper freely discusses the question of separation from the Empire, with a distinct inclination towards independence as the true Australian ideal.

At a public meeting which I addressed in Sydney the statement of the arguments for British unity met with what seemed to me a distinctly unfriendly reception. The case stands quite alone in my experience of the British world. I was, however, to my surprise assured by leading men who were present that the hearing given me was, for Sydney, a very good one. If so, the lot of a public man in New South Wales is not an enviable one.

At this meeting Mr. Buchanan of the Legislative Council moved, and Mr. Traill of the Legislative Assembly seconded, a resolution, affirming that 'the natural and inevitable tendency of the Australian colonies is to unite and form among themselves one free and independent nation.' I give the names of the mover and seconder that the weight or weakness of their support of such a resolution may be justly estimated by those competent to judge. In comment upon the occurrence the leading Sydney journal, while repudiating any sympathy with the display of Separatist feeling, said, 'the fact is patent that within the last few years the opponents of closer union, even the advocates of separation, have gathered courage, spoken more boldly, and taken an aggressive attitude.' Australians therefore know what they have to deal {222} with. Mr. Dibbs, the present premier of New South Wales, has used expressions that indicate a wish for or an expectation of Australian independence. On the other hand, among the great majority of leading men in the colony, including native Australians of prominence and conspicuous ability, such as Mr. Barton and Mr. Reid, the opinion appeared general that separation from the Empire would mean for Australia 'all loss and no gain.' At the Sydney conference of 1891 the voice of Sir Henry Parkes was as decisive for permanent unity with the Empire as was that of Sir John Macdonald at Quebec in 1864.

Making all allowance, however, for division of opinion in Sydney, it must be remembered that New South Wales by no means represents all Australia.

If large and enthusiastic meetings, the hearty support of an influential and exceptionally able press, and the cordial approval of the clearest thinkers form a sufficient index to popular opinion, then one is justified in saying that the idea of national unity appeals strongly to the sentiment and to the reasoned conviction of the people of the next great colony, Victoria. The dominating energy of Victoria has extended its interests to every corner of the Australian continent. Its business connection with the mother-land is more important and intimate than that of any other colony. Hence the outlook on national questions is wide, and Victoria would steadily resist any tendency to separation from the Empire. The same may be said, I think, of South Australia, where the press is conspicuous {223} for its able and temperate discussion of national questions and where the prominent leaders of opinion are sincere believers in the permanent unity of the Empire.

In Queensland, as is well known, there has been in past years much talk of separation, chiefly arising from friction with the Colonial office being made a factor in local party conflicts. For some time Queensland refused to share in the expense for naval defence undertaken by the other colonies, the contribution for that purpose being denounced as 'tribute.' Later and wiser thought has reversed this decision. From its long coast-line and the immediate proximity of settlements formed by other nations, Queensland has more interest than any other colony in naval defence.

The consciousness of exposure to attack prompted the attempted annexation of the whole of New Guinea, and explains the intense annoyance felt in Queensland at the refusal of the Colonial office to sanction that annexation. The necessity for naval protection is a permanent condition, and will probably dominate the political thought of Queensland even more than of the rest of Australia. In Rockhampton I had the opportunity of discussing, the question with a large and sympathetic audience, and in other parts of Queensland as well as there with leading politicians and journalists. Despite the superficial talk about separation, I doubt if in any colony of the Empire is the value of a great national connection more thoroughly understood by those who really dominate the policy of the colony.

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Taking the Australian continent as a whole I think it is a fair estimate to say that in every one of the colonies there is an overwhelming majority who would favour permanent connection with the Empire. On the other hand it is quite certain that in some of the colonies there is an active and aggressive minority energetically working for ultimate separation. It is for Australians and Australians alone to decide between these conflicting ideas.

TASMANIA.

The colony of Tasmania is comparatively small, but its insular position makes it one of the critical points in Australian defence. Up to the present time owing to the small population and revenue, its principal harbours have been less strongly fortified than those of Australia, and military authorities have constantly urged greater attention to its defences upon the ground that by seizing positions here an enemy might find means of coal supply and a base from which to attack Australia. Upon this point the report of General Edwards was most emphatic. The island is within three days' steaming distance from Adelaide, one from Melbourne, two and a half from Sydney and four from New Zealand. With several fine harbours, a soil and climate equal to any in the world, a considerable coal supply, and as yet only a limited population to resist attack, Tasmania {225} would present to any hostile power not merely an opportunity but almost a temptation to establish a Gibraltar in the Southern seas. Tasmania has strong commercial reasons for wishing to federate with Australia. On the other hand in an Australian federation she would have the strongest reasons for opposing separation from the mother-country. Like New Zealand, she depends for safety upon naval defence, a defence she could not receive from the colonies of the continent.

So far as it is possible to judge from external indications the opinion of this small but strategically most important colony is almost entirely in favour of close and permanent connection with the Empire. During discussion on the subject carried on in the principal centres of population, and extending over some weeks, I found that the idea of British unity was heartily supported by everyone of the leading newspapers, and by most of the principal public men, including the leaders of the Government and Opposition. Opposing ideas have their representatives in a small group of sincere republicans, headed by the present Attorney-General, the Hon. A. Inglis Clark. The republicanism of this small party was the more interesting, as it seemed to me quite unconnected with and superior to the irrational and bitter anti-British feeling which occasionally finds expression in one or two of the Australian colonies.

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NEW ZEALAND

In New Zealand I found among politicians, journalists, and the public generally, a remarkable consensus of opinion that the circumstances of that colony would always compel it to regard questions of national defence and consolidation from its own point of view, and in a large measure independently of Australia. Facts justify this attitude. New Zealand is 1000 miles long and nowhere more than 150 broad. Cut in two by a broad strait and penetrated by numerous bays and inlets, it has 3000 miles of coast line, and is therefore more exposed from a naval point of view than any other equally fertile, wealthy, and thinly settled country in the world. That it is an outlying part of Australia is an illusion left on many minds from a casual glance at small maps of the Southern Hemisphere, but the illusion vanishes the moment we visit the country or consider the facts. Twelve hundred miles of open sea separate it from Australia. The trade between the two is growing, but it is insignificant compared with the flood of commerce which pours from each towards Britain. The similarity of production will probably make this a permanent condition, save when drought compels Australia to look to New Zealand for food supplies. Britain is New Zealand's one great market, and it has become a more steady and reliable market from the means which have been devised to transfer the perishable produce of New Zealand farms to the {227} British consumer. Meanwhile, in her isolated position only naval power can give the colony adequate defence. The states of Australia can give effective support to each other—they cannot give it to New Zealand until they possess a fleet sufficient to command the Southern seas, and such a fleet they will not possess at any time within the range of present political calculation. Among reflective men in New Zealand one finds no readiness to believe that geographical isolation could be relied upon for giving military security, an idea which has considerable vogue in parts of Australia. 'I see that the tendency of enterprize and science is every year more to annihilate space, and space will be annihilated for purposes of war as well as peace, and the distance of the colonies from those who may attack them every year becomes less and less of a protection to them.' These words of Lord Salisbury express not inaccurately, I think, the prevailing thought of all serious politicans in New Zealand in regard to their country. The feeling is strengthened by a further consideration. New Zealand has already a good deal of trade with the scattered islands of the Pacific. This trade is likely to have a large development as time goes on. At any rate New Zealanders have formed a very definite ambition to acquire a large commercial connection and powerful influence in the Pacific, an ambition which can scarcely be realized unless its commercial interests have adequate naval support.

Considerations of the kind I have mentioned explain {228} the comparative indifference of the colony to Australian federation, which would never satisfy her necessities except as subsidiary to the larger national union. They explain the fairly unanimous support which her ablest public men have given to the general principle of national Federation. Mr. Ballance, the Liberal Premier of New Zealand, said in the House of Representatives, in a discussion which took place prior to the Australasian Federal Convention at Sydney, that 'Imperial Federation, with a free management of its own affairs as at present, was the only future he would look to for the colony.' Equally strong expressions could be gathered from the speeches or writings of most of the leading men of New Zealand. The fear lest Australian Federation might ultimately lead to separation from the Empire was publicly and expressly assigned as a reason why New Zealand should not be a part of the Australian commonwealth. Inside an Australasian Federation New Zealand's influence would be steadily thrown in favour of British national unity. On the other hand, should Australia ever move towards separation—an improbable contingency, but one often suggested by a few of her journalists and public men—the advantage in prestige and more practical ways which New Zealand would derive from retaining the wide national connection, and becoming the centre of the Empire's naval strength in the Southern seas, would infinitely outweigh anything Australia could possibly offer, and would decide the course to which {229} self-interest even now points. The individual interest which New Zealand thus holds towards the question is very significant, and worthy of careful attention. Placed in the centre of the water hemisphere of the globe this 'Britain of the South' seems the precise complement of the mother-country at the centre of the land hemisphere, while a conjunction of circumstances,—the possession of excellent harbours, already very fairly defended, and easily made impregnable, a plentiful supply of coal, timber, and metals, a climate which never fails to favour abundant crops, and nourishes a sturdy race,—fits the country to be the opposite pole of the Oceanic Empire which Britain has created. Distance might be supposed to have lessened commercial intercourse with the mother-land; as a matter of fact it is greater in proportion to wealth and population than that of any other country. Roughly putting the exports of New Zealand at £10,000,000 per annum, £7,000,000 go to Great Britain, £2,250,000 to other parts of the Empire, and only the small remaining balance to other countries. The proportion of imports is not widely different. Community of interest could scarcely be greater than this. The safety of this trade, too, is of the very essence of the prosperity, one might almost say of the commercial life of the country. Its stoppage would mean financial and industrial paralysis. We have therefore some measure of what the security guaranteed by the greatest naval power in the world means to New Zealand.

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On the other hand, it would be difficult to exaggerate the advantage which such a power would derive in war from the exclusive use of this halfway place in the voyage around the world. Auckland, Lyttleton, Wellington and Dunedin all have excellent harbours. The fortifications which protect them, constructed and equipped at the expense of the colony itself, are, says General Edwards in his report 'well planned, and the armaments are sufficient to repel the attack of several cruisers, provided the defence is properly organized and competent officers appointed to command.' Thus they furnish a comparatively secure retreat for ships of commerce or of war. Auckland and Lyttleton have docks, that at Auckland being capacious enough to receive for repair the largest ship of war afloat. Even now the vessels of France, Germany and other nations call here to coal, victual, or repair, finding such stations as Samoa or Noumea but poor bases from which to operate. The advantage to a nation holding these ports in time of war would be overwhelming. It would scarcely be diminished even if Australia should become independent. Other powers, if they respected Australia's independence, could not use her ports as a base of attack, and at the utmost could only demand the rights of neutrals which would be of little use in a serious conflict with Britain while retaining the exclusive possession of New Zealand. The defection of one or two of the Australian colonies, or even of the whole continent, would weaken {231} the chain of the Empire's maritime position, but would not create in it a fatal flaw, so long as New Zealand remains faithful to the national allegiance. The practically undivided sentiment of her people and her own supreme interests alike incline her in this direction.

[1] Address before Royal Colonial Institute—March, 1891.

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CHAPTER IX.

SOUTH AFRICA.

THOSE who claim that the separation from the Empire of any one of our three groups of great colonies would inflict a serious if not a fatal blow on our national greatness and the prosperity of British people—point with no slight interest to the illustration of their argument which is furnished by South Africa. Here, again, we have under the British flag a country of vast extent and favourable for European occupation. The institutions of self-government are already established over a wide area, and are being gradually extended. A confederation of all the South African provinces is already in the thought of practical statesmen. We have here, then, the probability of the formation of another power, so large that a merely colonial position cannot be expected to satisfy its ultimate political necessities. Though at present far inferior to Canada and Australia in population, and behind them in fulness of constitutional development, it is moving along the same lines of political growth, and circumstances may at any time lead to a rapid increase of population. Most of the arguments, therefore, which are used, in, {233} favour of Canadian or Australian separation apply to South Africa as well. If an independent government, a separate foreign policy, a distinct system of defence, an individual diplomatic relation to the rest of the world, is a political necessity for Australia, New Zealand, or Canada, it is clearly an equal necessity for South Africa. The internal impulse towards independence might even be expected to be exceptionally strong, since a considerable fraction of the white population is not British by descent, and has been led by circumstances to feel a peculiar sensitiveness in regard to political rights.

Is then the retention of South Africa under the national flag, and within the national system, a matter of indifference to British people either at home or abroad? Is the separation of South Africa, its freedom to associate itself with any power it pleases, or even its being placed in a position where British people could only enjoy or be granted neutral rights in its harbours, a condition of things which can be discussed with equanimity by Australians, New Zealanders, East Indians, nay, even by Canadians with their great ocean interests, to say nothing of the people of the United Kingdom itself? The test which South Africa applies to separatist theories seems to me a crucial one.

Once more I cannot do better than quote from the 'Problems of
Greater Britain.'

The author says: 'Considered from the Imperial, from the Indian, and from the Australian point {234} of view, as an aid to our maritime power, no spot on earth is more important to us than the Cape with its twin harbours Table Bay and Simon's Bay.' And again: 'While a general hostility to our rule would be sufficient to make us part with almost any other colony, it is impossible for us to give up the military station which we occupy at the extremity of the African continent and which itself cannot be held unless we hold at all events a portion of the country round it.'

No one who considers the geographical position of the Cape, and its relation to the greatest trade route of the Empire, can regard these utterances as exaggerated. The Cape is, and must always be, one of the greatest turning places of the world's commerce. Between St. Helena and Mauritius for the Indian bound ships, between St. Helena and King George's Sound for those going towards the Southern seas, the Cape is the only sufficient resting-place that European ships can find.

'As a vessel steaming from British ports for India, or China, or Australia, in time of war begins to approach the point of exhaustion of its coal supply it finds itself in a region of storms, far from any shelter except that at the Cape of Good Hope. The position of that refuge, and the certainty of being able to deny it to an enemy, combined with the command of the Red Sea route, even if only for the purpose of stopping it, draws therefore, on behalf of England, an almost impassable line on this side of the globe {235} between the Eastern and the Western Hemispheres. The difficulty which our ownership of the Cape places in the way of possible opponents, even more than the refuge afforded to our ships, constitutes in war the supreme advantage of the possession of the Cape of Good Hope as a naval station[1].'

Such being the relation of South Africa to the Empire, such the importance of its remaining under the British flag, we may well ask, with some anxiety, whether the feelings of its people and the interests of the colony point in the same direction.

The attitude of the leading men of South Africa towards the idea of national unity is clearly defined. Mr. Hofmeyer, the leader of the Dutch or Afrikander party, at the colonial conference of 1887, brought forward, and earnestly pressed upon the assembled delegates, a scheme for 'promoting a closer union between the various parts of the British Empire by means of an imperial tariff of customs.' His words indicate the temper of mind in which he addresses himself to the question: 'I have taken this matter in hand with two objects: to promote the union of the Empire, and at the same time to obtain revenue for the purpose of general defence.'

Sir Gordon Sprigg, for many years Premier of Cape Colony, speaking in London in 1891, strongly advocated a similar policy, and was urgent, to quote his own words, 'that an invitation should be addressed to the governments of the various colonies and dependencies {236} to send representatives to this country to consider, in a conference, the practicability of forming a commercial union between the different parts of the Empire,' regarding this as the most effectual way of accomplishing what he considered should be the aim of national statesmanship, viz. the unification of national interests.

The present Premier of Cape Colony, and the most influential man in South Africa, Mr. Cecil Rhodes, has stated that he looks upon the consolidation of the different colonies of South Africa as the main aim of his political life, but at the same time his utterances, from the beginning of his political career to the present moment, indicate conclusively that he only thinks of a united South Africa as an integral part of a united Empire, so constituted as to give adequate expression to the aims of its various members. It is interesting to find that these three men, who may be taken as representing the different sides of South African feeling, all eminently practical, and all above a suspicion of subjecting the interest of the colony to the interest of the nation at large, are agreed in the belief that the best future for their country is close association with the mother-land, and the Empire. And looking at the facts of the situation, from a South African point of view, who can doubt that they are justified? Pressing upon British South Africa on all sides are the nations of Europe. France is in Madagascar. Bordering on British territories are those of Germany and Portugal. {237} The Dutch Republics, as yet only half won to friendliness and sympathy, are close at hand. Large native populations—which do not fade away, as in America, New Zealand, or Australia at the approach of the white man, but rather multiply under influences which make for peace—are all around. The development of a great continent overflowing with stores of wealth depends not only on the energy of the men who have the work directly in hand, but on the confidence they feel that behind them is the diplomacy of a powerful nation to maintain their rights, the wealth of a rich nation to furnish them with capital, the strength of a great people to secure them, in emergency, from disaster.

If the British connection seems of such significance to South African statesmen, in working out the future of their vast country, quite as much does the Empire require the constant advice of those statesmen in directing the difficult diplomacy and making the critical decisions which the control of so much of the continent necessitates. The lack of such advice, directly and consistently sought, is probably at the root of much of the difficulty of the past. In the long run South African opinion must dominate national policy in South Africa. That it should be expressed in an authoritative form, and under a due sense of national responsibility, are the conditions which will make it most helpful, and most reliable.

Sir Gordon Sprigg and other public men from the Cape have pointed out to me how peculiar are the {238} problems which arise in South African politics, how much they stand apart from Anglo-Saxon experience in other parts of the world, how impossible it is for anyone who has not to deal with these problems on the spot to understand them. Here, if anywhere, the maxim is true to which I have alluded in another place, that 'only those who know a country are fitted to rule it.' It is only by utilizing the knowledge and experience of the best minds of the country that adequate direction can be given to its external relations as to its internal government.

The actual and contingent stake which Great Britain, Australia and other parts of the Empire have in the exclusive use of the Cape as a naval station in time of war may be roughly outlined in figures. Lord Brassey, dwelling upon the importance to the nation of completing the fortification and equipment of the neighbouring harbours, mentions in the Naval Annual for 1890, that at present about £90,000,000 worth of commerce centres at or passes this point every year, including £20,000,000 of outward trade to Australia, £13,000,000 to the Cape itself, and portions of the Indian, Chinese and other Eastern trade which make up the whole. This is under normal conditions. But should the Suez Canal be closed, and it is difficult to see how in a great European war this could be prevented, unless England could obtain and maintain absolute naval control of the Mediterranean, and military control of Egypt, then at least £150,000,000, and possibly £200,000,000 of {239} British trade would be forced to go round the Cape. I have mentioned elsewhere Lord Dufferin's statement, to the London Chamber of Commerce, that if anything ever occurred to take away our control of the Indian markets there is not a cottage in the manufacturing districts of England which would not feel the blow at once. If this be true of the Indian trade alone, the argument becomes much more impressive when applied to the risks which would be incurred, alike by Britain, India, and Australia if they were compelled to depend for the security of the whole vast volume of Eastern and Australian commerce upon such neutral rights as could be granted by an independent South Africa, or if they left the Cape in such a position that it could be seized by a hostile power. We have an interesting historical illustration of what security on this great trade route means in the fact, stated on apparently reliable authority, that between the years 1793 and 1797, when the French held the Isle of France and Bourbon, no less than 2266 British merchantmen were seized by French ships or expeditions sallying out from those stations. So intolerable did the situation become for British commerce that the conquest of the French stations became an absolute necessity, and this was effected in 1810 when a new outbreak of war had made like disaster imminent. Yet this was before the vast trade of Australasia had come into existence, and when our trade with the East was but a trifle compared with its present great proportions.

{240}

In the case of South Africa, however, the argument for national unity is so strong that few undertake to question it. Not long since, in the Manchester Reform Club, I met a sincere disciple of the old school of thinkers on colonial policy. He had studied the question under Mr. Goldwin Smith, at Toronto, and was at first concisely and comprehensively dogmatic in his assertion that the only plan for England was not only to permit, but to encourage, each of the great colonies to become independent as soon as possible. He was an honest thinker, and one could with him afford to stake the argument on a candid answer to a single question. 'Could Great Britain, with any regard to the safety of her national position, afford to give up South Africa'? The emphatic negative which, after a moment's thought, he gave, was the only reply possible for one who acknowledged the force of facts when presented to his mind.

THE WEST INDIES.

The present and contingent relation of the British West Indies to the problem of national defence, and therefore of national unity, is more direct than at first sight may appear. No portion of the Empire was won at greater expense of prolonged conflict than the West Indian Islands, but their relative commercial importance was temporarily diminished by the occupation of other tropical countries, and the substitution of the {241} beet-root sugar of temperate climates for that of the cane. West Indian trade, which has found out many new directions, is still, however, important, and not for the United Kingdom alone, but for the Canadian Dominion as well. Canada and the West Indies are the complement of each other in natural production, and a very large trade is sure to grow up between them as they develop in wealth and population. The Dominion has, therefore, a deep interest in the power of the Empire to protect commerce such as is given by stations like Bermuda, St. Lucia and Kingston. Halifax has already been connected with Bermuda by a telegraph cable. The West Indian islands and Naval Stations at present depend for communication upon lines passing through the United States. The continuation of the Halifax-Bermuda cable to the West Indies would give an independent electric connection between all the British possessions in America. This might become a very distinct addition to the resources of our naval system.

The completion of any means of ship communication across the Isthmus of Panama would increase indefinitely the importance to the Empire of the West Indies. Australia would have at once the same kind of interest in the strength of the national position there which she now has in our possession of the Cape, or in our control of Aden and Malta. Through this new channel would probably flow the main flood of British commerce with the western coasts of North and South America. It would furnish the easiest line of {242} naval communication between the Eastern and Western coasts of Canada.

Thus for the needs of the present and the contingencies of the future the retention of the British West Indies under the national flag gives strength to our general system of defence.

The completion of telegraphic and steam communication between the principal islands has brought the question of local federation within the range of serious discussion, but the obstacles, social as well as physical, are naturally much greater than in the case of Canada and Australia, and the accomplishment of union may be for some time delayed. The islands could not well be independent in any case, and there is probably no part of the Empire which would lend itself more readily than the West Indies to national consolidation.

[1] Problems of Greater Britain, vol. ii. p. 521.

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CHAPTER X.

INDIA.

'As time passes it rather appears that we are in the hands of a Providence which is greater than all statesmanship, that this fabric so blindly piled up has a chance of becoming a part of the permanent edifice of civilization, and that the Indian achievement of England, as it is the strangest, may after all turn out to be the greatest; of all her achievements.'—Prof. J. R. Seeley.

'BUT above all, what is to be done with India'? With this question Mr. Goldwin Smith makes the relation of India to the Empire the crux of the Federation problem. To him the difficulty presented seems insoluble, chiefly because he believes that it would be impossible for a federation of democratic communities scattered over the globe to hold India, about which they know little, as a dependency. He even doubts, in his customary vein of pessimism, whether the fate of the Indian Empire is not already 'sealed by the progress of democracy in Britain.' So far from this last being the case it looks as if the English working man, who has annually more than £60,000,000 of trade staked on our hold on India, will be the last to weaken by his vote our position in the country or our grip on the waterways which lead to the East. Every second or third day's work of the Lancashire cotton-spinner is done for the Indian market, or for other Eastern {244} markets which we control on account of our position in India. In some large districts, such as that of Oldham, the proportion is three days' work out of four. And the Lancashire spinner is a keen political thinker, especially where his bread and butter are concerned.

The industry of the city of Dundee depends almost entirely upon the supply of a single fibre from the valley of the Ganges. The Dundee jute-worker is a Radical, but he is not likely for that reason to forget that his daily wage depends on the hold which the Empire keeps upon Bengal. The purely trade relation of India to the United Kingdom was clearly put by Lord Dufferin in his address to the London Chamber of Commerce three years ago. He said:—

'During the past year our trade with our Indian Empire was larger than our trade with any other country in the world, with the exception of the United States, amounting to no less a sum than £64,000,000. If, again, we merely confine our attention to a comparison of our exports to India with our exports to other countries, we shall find that the same statement holds good, namely, that the exports of Great Britain to India are greater than those to any other country in the world except the United States, amounting as they do to £34,000,000, whereas our exports to France do not exceed £24,000,000, and to Germany £27,000,000. In fact, India's trade with the United Kingdom is nearly one-tenth of the value of the total British trade with the whole world. … In 1888 she took £21,250,000 worth of our cotton goods {245} and yarns, out of a total of £72,000,000 worth exported to all countries, whereas China only took £6,500,000 worth, Germany £2,500,000 worth and the United States £2,000,000 worth. Again, if we take another great section of British exports, such as hardware, machinery and metals, we find that out of a total export of £36,000,000 to all countries India in 1888 took £5,750,000 worth, whereas we only sent £3,000,000 worth to France, £1,750,000 worth to Russia, and £750,000 worth to China.

'These figures, I think, should be enough to convince the least receptive understanding what a fatal blow it would be to our commercial prosperity were circumstances ever to close, either completely or partially, the Indian ports to the trade of Great Britain, and how deeply the manufacturing population of Lancashire, and not only of Lancashire, but of every centre of industry in Great Britain and Ireland, is interested in the well-being and expanding prosperity of our Indian fellow-subjects. Indeed it would not be too much to say that if any serious disaster ever overtook our Indian Empire, or if our political relations with the Peninsula of Hindostan were to be even partially disturbed, there is not a cottage in Great Britain, at all events in the manufacturing districts, which would not be made to feel the disastrous consequences of such an intolerable calamity.'

There is another point to consider. The rapid growth of our vast Indian commerce has been largely due to the application on an immense scale of British capital {246} for the opening up of the country by railways and canals, and for the conservation and distribution of water by systems of irrigation. It is estimated that £350,000,000 are thus invested, to which must be added other large sums employed in various forms of industrial enterprise; the profits and interest of all this capital flowing back steadily to the United Kingdom, and evidently secured only by British dominance.

When to all this we connect the fact that from 75,000 to 100,000 British people find well paid employment in carrying on the government, defence and industrial development of the country we begin to understand the vast range of national interests involved in our retaining possession of India. The estimate that the people of the United Kingdom draw from India sixty or seventy millions sterling every year in direct income is probably a moderate one. Directly then Britain's stake in India is enormous. Indirectly our possession of the country would probably determine the drift of the commerce of the vast regions still further East.

Nor is it the United Kingdom alone which is concerned.

The present and prospective interest of the Australasian colonies in India are also great, not only for the military reasons which have been mentioned, but in view of the growing trade relations. India reduced to anarchy by the withdrawal of British rule, or India governed by Russia, would mean a serious blow {247} to Australasian trade, present and prospective. It might easily mean exclusion from all the markets of the East.

South Africa, which owed its earliest development to the fact that it was the stopping place on the road to India, still owes much of its importance to the same cause. The interest of Canada in India is more remote, but now that Canadian steamship lines are on the Pacific, with their terminus at Hong Kong, Britain's position in the East has a new interest for the Dominion.

But every British colony great and small is directly and deeply interested in the maintenance of the power of the Empire, and if the continued power of the Empire involves, as it seems to do, the retention and government of India, the colonies should not shrink from sharing that responsibility.

Professor Seeley has proved with conclusive clearness that the government of India has had very little effect upon the domestic politics of England; there is no reason to think that it would have more upon the domestic politics of the Empire.

The political difficulty about India's relation to a united Empire is, however, felt very widely. It is one of the first which occurs to the minds of most men when they turn their attention to the question, as I have found during public discussion in many parts of the Empire. Nor is this to be wondered at. That a country enjoying popular representative institutions should rule as an imperial power over some hundreds {248} of millions of people without representation in their own government is an extraordinary anomaly. Men's minds have, however, become accustomed to it by long usage, and the fact is accepted almost without remark. But when a proposal is made to re-construct the national organism on what is claimed to be a logical basis, the incompatibility between our popular system of government, and the system which we apply to India at once re-appears.

The anomaly, however, would be no greater under federation than without it, and it is one with which the British mind in all parts of the Empire is familiar. Most of the great colonies have had on a small scale the experience which the United Kingdom has had on a large scale of ruling weaker races without giving them representation.

Unquestionably confusion of thought is caused by the careless use of the term Empire into which English people have fallen. Applied to India and the crown colonies it is admissible, though with the qualification that in practice the Empress of India acts as much under advice as the Queen of England. As a name for the 'slowly grown and crowned Republic' of which the mother-land is the type and the great self-governing colonies copies, the term Empire is a misnomer, and has none of the meaning which it has when applied to Russia, Austria, or the France of the Napoleons. If immediate reflection of the popular will in public policy be taken as the test, England, Canada, and Australia are more republican than the modern {249} republics; as democratic as is well possible under a representative system of government. But the people of this 'crowned republic,' proud of their capacity for self-government, and impatient of any illegitimate control over themselves, have assumed the task of governing a real Empire—one which contains a population of some hundreds of millions of various races. The legitimacy of this assumed task we need not stay to discuss. The actual relation of Britain to India as to several other countries without self-government is a fact; and one which has passed beyond the range of discussion.

This government of India the United Kingdom, upon which the work now devolves, finds it possible to carry on, and on the whole efficiently. That it is done to the good of the people ruled is scarcely open to question. British rule in India may be far from ideally perfect, but that it is superior to anything India ever had before is freely admitted even by foreigners. Is there anything in the nature of the case which would prevent the representatives of a united British race from carrying forward the government of India as do now the representatives of the United Kingdom alone?

Let us consider the system of government. To the Indians themselves no representation, as we understand the term, is given. While largely employed for executive functions they take no part in legislation. An English statesman of proved capacity, assisted by a council of experienced specialists, is placed as {250} Viceroy at the head of affairs. Under him is a trained body of civil servants, selected by a rigid system of examination. To these the general administration of the country is committed. It is a system of government by experts.

The fiscal system of India, its revenue and expenditure, are kept entirely separate from those of the United Kingdom. It has its separate and clearly defined code of laws suited to its circumstances. It has a practically independent military organization. The government of the great dependency is not only essentially different in form from that of the self-governing portions of the Empire, but revolves in a sphere of its own. The general lines of Indian policy come under the review of Parliament; the pressure of public opinion is kept upon those who rule India through the channel of Parliamentary criticism; beyond this the rule of the country is left to the specialists to whom it has been committed. It has been long since any question of Indian policy made or unmade a government.

I have met everywhere, in Britain and in the colonies, people who think that India makes a heavy drain upon the revenues of the United Kingdom, and would do so upon the revenues of a united Empire. This is an example of that ignorance which, it has been truly said, is the most probable dissolvent of the Empire. It is therefore not unnecessary to say that India pays exclusively for its own defence and government. Every soldier, white or native, from the {251} Commander-in-Chief down to the humblest sepoy; every civil servant, from the Governor-General to the lately appointed clerk, is paid from Indian revenues alone. India does even more, it pays the whole expense of the India Office in London, and for the maintenance of Aden and other ports near the mouth of the Red Sea, with their garrisons, although these give protection to other Eastern commerce and to that of the Australasian colonies as well as Indian. India contributes also to the maintenance of consular establishments in China and of the British Embassy in Persia. The resources and the fighting power of India stand today as a barrier to guard from danger the enormous British commerce in the Eastern seas, to keep back the most dangerous military power of Europe and Asia from nearer approach to the English communities of the South.

The question whether any degree of representation could be given to the Indian population would remain for a federated Empire, just as it now exists for the United Kingdom. The problem would be no greater and no less. Any step taken in that direction would no doubt be exceedingly cautious and tentative. But for dealing with this, as with all other Indian problems, a united Empire, with its consolidated strength, would be vastly more efficient than a nation going through various stages of disintegration.

The answer which appears to me sufficient to those whom claim that Britain's control of India interposes {252} an insuperable obstacle to a Federal system for the Empire is this:—

India is practically a crown colony, and as yet the United Kingdom has shown no inclination to govern it otherwise than as a crown colony. The same duty may be rightly accepted and duly fulfilled by British people as a whole under any system of common government. To accept it would create no new national burden or risk, would react no more upon the ordinary political development of the various states than it has upon that of the United Kingdom.

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CHAPTER XI.

AN AMERICAN VIEW.

FOR the sake of studying the various angles from which the idea of federating the Empire is criticized it seems worth while to refer briefly to some of the views expressed in a paper, lately contributed to a leading magazine[1], on the subject, by Mr. Andrew Carnegie, under the title of 'An American View' of Imperial Federation. Among thinking native Americans I have found, as a rule, a genuine sympathy with the advocates of unity for British people, a sympathy perfectly natural in a nation which has suffered and sacrificed so much as the people of the United States have for a similar object. Besides, their familiarity not only with the idea of large political organization, but with its actual working out has taken away from them that fear of its difficulties which seems to haunt many weak-kneed Englishmen who conceive that human political capacity had achieved its utmost when it evolved the existing Imperial system. One of the distinguished thinkers of the United States, after a tour made around the world a few years ago, expressed {254} to me, with characteristic American energy and emphasis, the opinion he brought home with him upon the subject of British consolidation. 'The citizen of the British Empire,' said he, 'who is not an enthusiast on the question of Imperial Federation, is a Philistine of the very first magnitude.'

Working out on separate and yet parallel lines the great problems of liberty and of civil and religious progress, the United States and the British Empire have the strongest reasons for sympathizing with each other's efforts to consolidate and perfect the national machinery by which their aims are to be accomplished. English people now understand and respect the motives which actuated the resolute and successful struggle of the people of the United States against disruption. That Americans should understand the necessity which exists for maintaining the integrity of the Empire and the principles on which it is sought to maintain it, is most desirable. They are not likely to learn them from Mr. Carnegie.

Curiously enough, he begins his argument by forgetting that there is a British Empire. As I have pointed out elsewhere (though without regarding the views as essential to Federation), there are those who consider that national consolidation would be hastened on through an endeavour by tariff agencies to make the Empire self-sufficing in the matter of food, just as the United States by the McKinley tariff, are endeavouring to make themselves self-sufficing in the matter of manufactures.

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Mr. Carnegie justifies protection in the United States because it ultimately cheapens production, and then says: 'Now because Britain has not the requisite territory to increase greatly her food supply, any tax imposed upon food could not be temporary but must be permanent. The doctrine of Mill does not therefore apply, for protection, to be wise, must always be in the nature of only a temporary shielding of new plants until they take root. It will surprise many if Britain ever imposes a permanent tax upon the food of her 38,000,000 of people, with no possible hope of ever increasing the supply, and thereby reducing the cost, and thus ultimately rendering the tax unnecessary. A tax for a short period, that fosters and increases production, and a tax for all time which cannot increase production, are different things.'

Mr. Carnegie evidently forgets that the Empire covers one fifth of the world, that it produces every article of food and raw material of manufacture, that under the compulsion of any great national necessity it could in five years make itself independent of outside supplies, with the possible exception of raw cotton, and that by the natural processes of growth and change, without any protection, it is likely in the near future, partly on account of the inability of the United States to furnish what they have hitherto furnished, to be drawing its supplies of food chiefly from its own territories. It is not my business to suggest, much less argue for a system of protection {256} for the Empire, but if it is to be discussed, let us at least take into account the elementary facts which Mr. Carnegie omits. The climax of absurdity seems well-nigh reached when Mr. Carnegie, fresh from the full operation of the McKinley Tariff and its justification, roundly accuses the Empire Trade League of making 'efforts to array one part of the race against the other part' because it has suggested a very slight differential tariff within the Empire. Life in America is not generally supposed to destroy a sense of the ridiculous.

Mr. Carnegie's criticism of another class of Federationists is that they have 'no business' in their programme, 'no considerations of trade,' that 'sentiment reigns supreme.' It is evident that he has not a primary conception of the main drift of federation policy. He is like many of his fellow-citizens in America, out of whom life on a broad continent appears to have driven the maritime instinct. Because external commerce or the carrying trade means little to the United States, or because his own country is so remarkably self-contained, he has no standard by which to measure the profound and practical significance which maritime position has for countries like Great Britain or Australia. In 1890 of the 3389 vessels which passed through the Suez Canal 2522 were British and three American. In the same year, out of the whole volume of American external trade itself, only 12.29 per cent., or about one-eighth was carried in American bottoms, of the remaining seven-eighths by far the larger part crossed the seas under the {257} British flag. Again, in 1890 the shipping cleared in England amounted in all to 3,316,442 tons, but of this only 38,192 tons were under the United States flag, although the trade between the two countries is one of vast proportions. These figures will serve to illustrate how difficult it must be for anyone looking at our national questions from an American point of view to understand the fundamental interests of British people, and perhaps explain the airy cheerfulness with which Mr. Carnegie suggests various processes of political evolution which involve the disintegration of the Empire. But Mr. Carnegie has other difficulties than those which arise from studying a question from an unfavourable angle. The intense occupations of business in America may well be his excuse for not keeping in touch with the movement of British politics; they can scarcely excuse him for discussing English affairs as if he were in a position to understand them. 'Britain,' he says, 'can choose whether Australia, Canada, and her other colonies, as they grow to maturity, can set up for themselves, with every feeling of filial devotion towards her, or whether every child born in these lands is to be born to regard Britain as the cruel oppressor of his country. There is no other alternative, and I beseech our friends of the Imperial Federation (League) to pause ere they involve their country and her children in the disappointment and humiliation which must come, if a serious effort is made to check the development and independent existence of the colonies, for independence {258} they must and will seek, and obtain, even by force, if necessary.' One hesitates whether to lay stress upon the ignorance or the folly of sentences like these. I use the words advisedly. Ignorance, because apparently Mr. Carnegie does not know that almost every responsible British statesman of the past half century and of the present day, when dealing with this question, has said that when the great colonies wish to go Great Britain will raise no objection; that this view has been re-echoed unanimously by the press and by public opinion; and that no advocate of Imperial Federation, national unity, or whatever other name we apply to British consolidation, has ever hinted at the union of the self-governing portions of the Empire as anything else than a pact entered into voluntarily by communities free to choose or refuse as they please, as free as were the States of the American Union or the provinces of the Dominion to adopt their present system. Britain has not waited, and Imperial Federationists have not waited, for Mr. Carnegie's supplications to decide this great and fundamental issue of national policy. The advocates of national unity are the foremost to proclaim it. Folly, for it is folly when Mr. Carnegie, in the face of facts like these, which nobody can question, rounds his periods with hints at cruel oppression, on the one side, and independence won by force, on the other, when discussing the relations of England and her colonies. It is on his own continent that he finds the example of states kept within a national union by force.

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If Mr. Carnegie understands little about Britain's relation to her colonies and to the world, he understands much less about the opinions of colonists. None the less he speaks of them with the most complete assurance of knowledge. A single illustration will give the measure of his ignorance. Quoting certain views in opposition to British connection expressed by Mr. Mercier, the late leader of the extreme national party in the French province of Quebec, he gravely assures his readers that Mr. Mercier reflects the sentiments of ninety-nine out of every hundred native-born Canadians and Australians. Absurdity could scarcely go further.

Mr. Carnegie poses as a political philosopher and gives English statesmen the advantage of his sage advice on national questions. We look for the grounds of this superior wisdom and we read as follows: 'What lesson has the past to teach us upon this point? Spain had great colonies upon the American continent: where are these now? Seventeen republics occupy Central and South America. Five of these have prepared plans for federating. Portugal had a magnificent empire, which is now with the Brazilian Republic. Britain had a colony. It has passed from its mother's apron-strings and set up for itself, and now the majority of all our race are gathered under its Republican flag[2]. What is there in the position of {260} Britain's relations to Australia and Canada that justifies the belief that any different result is possible with them? I know of none.' And knowing none, Mr. Carnegie, by his own confession, writes in utter ignorance of the main facts of the question which he discusses. Spain and Portugal governed their colonies from the home centre, and as tributaries. Britain allows her colonies to govern themselves, and to dispose of their own money as they please; Spain and Portugal (and England in 1776) wished to retain their colonies against their will; Britain now leaves the question of continued connection a matter which colonists are to decide for themselves.

Very interesting indeed is Mr. Carnegie's sudden change of front when he comes to look at federation as making for the aggrandisement or the good of {261} the United States rather than of the British Empire. He has just been proving the absurdity, the impossibility, nay, the criminality, of trying to knit together in some sufficient federal union the mother-land and her great colonies. He proves to his own satisfaction that the colonies never will be and never ought to be satisfied with the position they will have in such a union. Separate governments and separate governments alone will satisfy their yearnings for complete independence.

He passes by without note the idea which inspires the Federationist, who believes that such a union will make enormously for the world's peace, not only by preventing the formation of many distinct and possibly hostile states, but also by enabling British people to give security to industry over an area of the world greater than was ever before under a single flag—at least three times as great as that of the United States, to say nothing of the vast extent of ocean which the Empire can control.

With his ignoring of this leading idea of those who wish for British unity, and his ridicule of federation for the Empire, a feature of the alternative which he proposes is in odd contrast. He suggests that Canada should be encouraged by England not merely to give up her present allegiance, but to join the United States, and this is the argument with which he supports his suggestion: 'With the appalling condition of Europe before us, it would be criminal for a few millions of people to create a separate government {262} and not to become part of a great mass of their own race which joins them, especially since the federal system gives each part the control of all its internal affairs, and has proved that the freest government of the parts produces the strongest government of the whole.' Why not, one asks, for the British people as well as for those of the United States? Why may not full control of internal affairs and the freest government of the various parts of the British Empire go hand in hand with a strong government for the whole? Why may we not consider the united and sympathetic effort of the different divisions of the Empire to so consolidate their strength as to maintain peace over one fifth of the world directly—indirectly over a still greater proportion—a nobler ideal than that for which Mr. Carnegie thinks the Empire should give up Canada—i.e. the peace of America? Nor need the larger interfere with the smaller aspiration. Incidentally Mr. Carnegie himself fully admits this. After having used the possibility of conflict between Great Britain and the United States as his chief or only argument for the transfer of Canada's nationality, he goes on to say: 'Even today every Federationist has the satisfaction of knowing that the idea of war between the two great branches is scouted on both sides of the Atlantic. Henceforth, war between members of our race may be said to be already banished, for English-speaking men will never again be called upon to destroy each other. During the recent difference … not a whisper was heard on either {263} side of any possible appeal to force as a mode of settlement. Both parties in America and each successive government are pledged to offer peaceful arbitration for the adjustment of all international difficulties—a position which it is to be hoped will soon be reached by Britain, at least in regard to all differences with members of the same race.'

The Geneva arbitration, the Halifax arbitration, the San Juan Settlement, the offer of arbitration in the Behring Sea affairs, so long urged upon Mr. Blaine by Lord Salisbury before it was accepted, the arbitration arranged with France in the affairs of Newfoundland, all seem to indicate that Britain is quite as advanced as the United States in these views of peaceful settlement. With this qualification of his way of stating the case we may accept Mr. Carnegie's hopeful outlook, which takes away all the point of his previous contention. There is, however, a point worthy of his and our consideration.

I once heard Lord Rosebery express the opinion that equality of power was one of the chief guarantees of peace between great states. It adds the very powerful motive of self-interest to those other influences which incline a nation to arbitration or other fair and reasonable methods of settling international difficulties. 'If,' said he, 'it should ever happen that England became towards the United States like the old grandmother in the corner, her teeth dropping out one by one, as her colonies leave her, and she {264} were patronised or despised by her grown up offspring, this relation would not be one tending to promote friendly feeling. Far better for mutual respect, consideration, and closer friendship that each should follow out its own development on its own broad lines.' Whether a British Empire going through a process of disintegration, or one steadily consolidating its strength would be more likely to obtain equity and fair play from American politicians (who must so often be distinguished from the American people) I may safely leave even Mr. Carnegie, who knows them, to decide.

Nor is there anything in the position of the United States on the continent which would justify Americans in demanding from the Empire the sacrifice of her maritime position implied in the transfer of Canada to a new nationality. Ports on the Atlantic and Pacific as many as they need the United States already have. Trade in Canadian products they can obtain on terms as fair as they will themselves agree to. A less aggressive neighbour they could scarcely expect to have. Two countries on the same continent working out parallel political problems by different agencies may be mutually helpful with varying experiment and example. Contrast and mutual reaction stimulate progress for more than vast monotony of system.

Mr. Carnegie endorses Mr. Goldwin Smith's opinion that Britain's 'position upon the American continent is the barrier to sympathetic union with her great {265} child, the Republic.' As an American he should be ashamed to admit the accuracy of such an opinion. Britain's right to her place on the American continent is as much above question as is that of the United States. The man or people to whom a neighbour's enjoyment of an admitted right causes irritation, has lost the finer sense of morality. The nation which yielded an undoubted right under the pressure of such a base irritation would do a harm to international morals. British Federationists have more faith in the nobler qualities of the American people than has Mr. Carnegie. They earnestly hope for a union of effort in behalf of the higher interests of humanity between the great Republic and the Empire from which she sprang, but they know that that union can only come from mutual respect for each other's rights, and can never be brought about if the aggrandisement of the one must be purchased by the disintegration of the other.

One more passage must be quoted to illustrate the range of Mr. Carnegie's vision when he leaves the domain of American politics to discuss the affairs of Great Britain. He says: 'Her (Britain's) colonies weaken her powers in war and confer no advantage upon her in peace.'

I must let another American, whose mind has not been too much influenced by devotion to trade on a highly protected continent, a man who has had occasion to study seriously the larger problems of national life, make answer.

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'England,' says Lieutenant Mahan[3], 'by her immense colonial Empire has sacrificed much of this advantage of concentration of force around her own shores; but the sacrifice was wisely made, for the gain was greater than the loss, as the event proved. With the growth of her colonial system her war fleets also grew, but her merchant shipping and wealth grew yet faster.'

And again;—

'Undoubtedly under this second head of warlike preparation must come the maintenance of suitable naval stations, in those distant parts of the world to which the armed shipping must follow the peaceful vessels of commerce. The protection of such stations must depend either upon direct military force, as do Gibraltar and Malta, or upon a surrounding friendly population, such as the American colonists once were to England, and, it may be presumed the Australian colonists now are. Such friendly surroundings and backing, joined to a reasonable military provision, are the best of defences, and when combined with decided preponderance at sea, make a scattered and extensive empire like that of England, secure; for while it is true that an unexpected attack may cause disaster in some one quarter, the actual superiority of naval power prevents such disaster from being general or irremediable. History has sufficiently proved this. England's naval bases have been in all parts of the world, and her fleets have at once protected them, {267} kept open the communications between them, and relied upon them for shelter.

'Colonies attached to the mother-country afford, therefore, the surest means of supporting abroad the sea power of a country. In peace, the influence of the government should be felt in promoting by all means a warmth of attachment and a unity of interest which will make the welfare of one the welfare of all, and the quarrel of one the quarrel of all; and in war, or rather for war, by inducing such measures of organization and defence as shall be felt by all to be a fair distribution of a burden of which each reaps the benefit.'

After such a statement of the bases on which sea power rests it is with natural regret that Lieutenant Mahan adds: 'Such colonies the United States has not and is not likely to have. … Having therefore no foreign establishments, either colonial or military, the ships of war of the United States, in war, will be like land birds, unable to fly far from their own shores. To provide resting-places for them, where they can coal and repair, would be one of the first duties of a government proposing to itself the development of the power of the nation at sea.'

British people, either at home or in the colonies, may safely be left to decide whether they can afford that their ships should be in war like land birds, unable to fly far from their own shores.'

It must not, however, be supposed that Mr. Carnegie really represents the views of the better minds of his {268} own country on the question of British Unity. In an article contributed to a leading American Magazine three years ago I had occasion to outline for American readers the chief features of the Federation problem. The editorial comment upon this paper seems worthy of reproduction as an expression of genuine American opinion on the subject, and may be commended to Mr. Carnegie's consideration. The writer says: 'What could be more natural than the "Federation" scheme for British reconstruction, which has been before the British public for years, and is now renewed in the article just mentioned? It offers to Great Britain the maintenance of every interest, legal, economic, political and moral, which has grown up in the past, and has shown itself worthy of conservation. It maintains all the ties which have held the different parts of the Empire together. It even strengthens them prodigiously by transforming the weak ties of colonialism into a true national life: so that the foreigner shall look upon Canada or Jamaica, not as temporary hangers-on of a distant island, but as component and fully recognized members of a magnificent ocean empire. It distributes the burden of imperial taxation over the whole empire, so that the Australian may look upon the Imperial iron-clad which comes into his harbour as possibly the product of his own state's taxation, while Canadian regiments shall take their tour of duty in English or Irish cities, or at the Cape. It lessens the dangers of a new break-up of the Empire through Colonial discontent: {269} the Canada or New South Wales of the "federation" could submit without a second thought to the abandonment of claims "by its own government," while there is now always something of a sting in such an abandonment by a home government on whose decision the colony has exercised no direct influence. It leaves to every square foot of the Empire that alternative of self-government in the present, or of the hope of self-government in the future which is afforded by our State and Territorial systems. Canada would be at once one of the self-governing States of the Empire: but the territories of India would have under the Federation such prospects of complete state-hood, when they should deserve it, as they could never have under a Russian Dominion or protectorate. …

'The question now is whether the inevitable development of English democracy in new directions, more particularly in that of a federated empire, shall happily anticipate any conjunction of circumstances which might otherwise force a second break-up of the Empire. It is really, then, a race against time by the English democracy.'

The closing reference to Canada may be commended to the consideration of Mr. Goldwin Smith, as well as Mr. Carnegie, since it reflects a spirit worthy of a great people.

'If, as one result, our neighbours to the north of us should become an integral part of a real empire, such a natural and simple solution will find no congratulations {270} more prompt and cordial than those of the American people, even though they are not based on any of those selfish advantages which annexation professes to offer to the United States[4].'

[1] Nineteenth Century, Sept. 1891.

[2] This statement is a characteristic instance of Mr. Carnegie's inaccuracy. Let him subtract from the whole population of the United States the seven or eight millions of negroes in the Southern States, the six or seven millions of Italians, Spaniards, Poles, Hungarians, Austrians, Russians, Germans and Scandinavians, who entered the country between 1847 and the present time, the people who with their descendants threaten, according to American writers, to overwhelm the native element of the population; let him place beside these figures the further facts stated on American authority that the emigration from Great Britain to the United States has been in the same period only about 1,500,000, and from Ireland 2,500,000; and he may find reason to acknowledge that the mass of 'our race' is still in the British Islands and in the great colonies which yet retain their distinctive Anglo-Saxon character. Mr. Carnegie makes the triumphant calculation that the child is born who will see more than 400,000,000 people under the sway of the United States. He adds the odd comment: 'No possible increase of the race can be looked for in all the world comparable to this.' So far from such a growth indicating the increase of our race, it could only mean its practical obliteration in the great Republic. The increase of the native American population is notoriously very slow—only a largely increased influx of alien races could make Mr. Carnegie's calculations a reality.

[3] Influence of Sea Power, p. 29.

[4] Century Magazine, Jan. 1889.

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CHAPTER XII.

FINANCE.

THE financial aspects of our question are striking and significant. Britain herself is the greatest money-lending nation of the world: her colonies and dependencies, with their vast undeveloped resources, are among the greatest borrowers. The public debts of the Australasian colonies amount to nearly £200,000,000, and private investments for the development of mines, for the wool producing and meat raising industries and so on, amount, I have been told by Australian business men, to even more. It is probably a moderate estimate to say that Australasia borrows £400,000,000, all of which is raised in London, to which the interest steadily flows back.

In his 'Problems of Greater Britain' Sir Charles Dilke says: 'British capital to the extent of £350,000,000 sterling has been sunk in Indian enterprises, on official or quasi-official guarantee; and a further vast amount of British capital is employed by purely private British enterprise in industry.'

Canada's public borrowings amount to about £50,000,000, and allowing an equal sum for private {272} investments, she perhaps draws £100,000,000 of working capital from English sources.

Nothing has been said about South Africa, the West Indies, and the minor divisions of the Empire, but even the rough estimates already given prove that the aggregate of money loaned from Britain, and borrowed by other parts of the Empire, reaches enormous figures, and certainly exceeds £1,000,000,000 sterling.

For investor and borrower the benefit is mutual. The investor has the advantage of placing his money where it will be employed in making the most of vast natural resources, under a settled government, and in the energetic and responsible hands of men of our own race. This advantage is emphasized by the experience of British capitalists in countries like Argentina, where government is unstable, or Turkey, where it is inefficient. It is emphasized by the contrast between the financial position of Egypt, when dominated by British influence and protected by British power, and the same country when free to follow its own methods of administration and compelled to find its own defence.

It is shown by the difference between the rates at which Australia or Canada borrow money, and those paid by many foreign states.

The colonial borrower has the advantage of getting the money he requires at the cheapest rate possible. The last Canadian loan was floated at 3 per cent, and the Australian colonies are borrowing at 3 1/2. Lord {273} Dufferin has said that British capital is ventured in India 'on the assumption that English capital and English justice would remain dominant in India.' In like manner the rate at which colonial loans are issued is unquestionably determined in part by the fact that the industrial position and military security of the colonies is guaranteed by the imperial power. Independent, exposed to face the risks of war unaided, and compelled to bear the whole burden of defending their coasts and commerce, the credit of the colonies could not be what it is to-day.

On the other hand, since cheap capital means cheap production, the money lent on easy terms to the colonies returns far more to the mother-country than the interest which has hitherto been so regularly paid. It secures for Britain what she most requires, cheap food and cheap raw material—wheat, beef and mutton, wool, cotton and minerals. For a great consuming country the free movement of the wheels of industry in the areas of production is all-important. Even the cheap insurance which comes from assured safety in the transport of goods between producer and consumer is no slight element in the prosperity of both.

In view of these considerations there is clearly ground for saying that a close political union between the greatest money-lending centre of the world and countries which have the widest range of undeveloped resources, between the greatest consuming country and those mainly productive, will be of the greatest advantage to both.

{274}

I have often, to audiences in the colonies, put the financial relation in the following way: 'You borrow from Britain in public debts many hundred millions of pounds. When, as merchants, ship-owners, or house-holders, you borrow money in a private capacity, on your goods, your ships, or your houses, the lender requires that as a guarantee your property must be insured, and for this insurance you must yourself pay. Now when British people lend you money, on your state credit, they themselves provide the insurance of the whole strength of the British army and navy—an insurance which it is admitted secures the cheapest money in the world. But not only does Britain lend you the money for the development of your resources, and provide the insurance which enables you to have it at a cheap rate, but under her Free trade system she then in addition throws herself into the open market for every pound of wool or ounce of gold or tin that you produce. She asks no preference in colonial markets. Any conditions which would be more favourable for a borrowing country I cannot find it possible to conceive.'

A further point seems worthy of consideration.

While the colonies, under the national production, borrow money cheaply on the public credit, the United Kingdom borrows more cheaply still. Low as is the rate of interest paid on the National Debt, for many purposes of investment it is deemed the most satisfactory, because the most secure, of all.

One of the advantages which Canada has reaped {275} from internal confederation has been the greatly decreased rate of interest which she pays for her borrowings. A high financial authority has estimated that the Australasian colonies would gain, from a consolidated federal stock, an advantage equal to a diminution of more that £20,000,000 on the general indebtedness. Facts such as these have naturally led the advocates of national unity to suggest a further step and to urge that a financial federation of the public debts of the Empire, guaranteed by the strength and resources of the nation at large, would reduce the cost of public money for the colonies and dependencies to at least the level of interest paid on the National Debt. It has been pointed out with force and reason that the saving which might thus be effected under a guarantee of Imperial unity would of itself be sufficient to enable the colonies to contribute a large sum to the national defence without any addition to the burdens which they now bear, while sensibly relieving the taxpayer of the United Kingdom. The fixing of a reasonable limit to thus borrowing on national credit for each portion of the Empire would, of course, present a difficulty, but it is one which has, on a small scale, been grappled with in the provinces of the Canadian confederation, and does not seem to be altogether insuperable. The federally guaranteed debt would certainly be held almost exclusively within the Empire itself, and the general desire for its complete security might fairly be expected to act as a strong national bond. {276} Enormous as is the amount which the mother-country has already staked in the colonies and dependencies, it seems certain that under favourable conditions capital will more and more seek these areas of peaceful industrial development rather than take the risks of internal revolutions in South America or military convulsions in Europe. With closer union this tendency, in itself essentially healthy, would increase. With separation, it would be deeply affected by two considerations: first, the weakened guarantee of safety to the individual colony: and second, the new burden which would be laid upon the separating colony in undertaking single-handed the whole task of defence, and the whole diplomatic, consular and other organization incident to national independence. Inevitably expenses would go up while credit went down. I am satisfied that people either in England or abroad who for colonial relations thoughtlessly borrow the simile of the ripe fruit dropping easily from the parent tree, have formed little conception of the violent financial wrench involved in the separation of even one great colony, or of the strength of the financial bond which, every day increasing in strength, is binding more closely together with ties of common interest the mother-land and her greatest offshoots.

A very important financial issue has lately been raised by the proposition to permit the investment of British Trust Funds in colonial securities. The proposal has for some time been steadily urged upon the English Government by the Agents General who {277} officially represent the Australian colonies, and by the High Commissioner for Canada, and it is generally believed that the negociations had proceeded so far that at one time Her Majesty's Government had consented to initiate the Legislation necessary for the purpose. Though the discussion is now in abeyance, it will no doubt come up at a later time for decision. If favourable, that decision would confer a considerable financial advantage upon the colonies. Of the sufficiency of the guarantee furnished in such investments careful and responsible financiers entertain no reasonable doubt. It is obvious, however, that any determination to concede this privilege to trustees implies a belief that the colonies will remain a part of the Empire. It is equally obvious that any tendency in an opposite direction on the part of any great colony would be fatal to the proposition. At present such investment can only be made in certain home securities, or in Indian, and a very limited number of colonial securities which are under direct Imperial guarantee. There would be as valid reason for extending them to French, Italian or Russian securities as to those of colonies which might soon become independent nations. It will be scarcely possible to avoid the consideration of ultimate inter-imperial relations should this subject come up for final decision in Parliament. Under a settled system of Imperial unity colonial securities, even without Legislation, would naturally rank with the best in the Empire.

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CHAPTER XIII.

TRADE AND FISCAL POLICY.

IN matters of fiscal policy the British Empire at present occupies a position peculiar among all the nations of the world, in that for nearly half a century it has been without any fiscal system common to its various parts. Nor does the fact seem to have seriously affected the sense of unity. It cannot be said that New South Wales, which till quite lately has in its fiscal arrangements followed the example of the mother-country, is united a whit more closely to her than is Victoria or Canada, where duties have long been imposed not merely for revenue but for protection. 'Nor can it be truly said that the ties, practical or sentimental, which bind together Canada and the United Kingdom, have grown weaker since the adoption in the Dominion of a trade policy opposite to that of the mother-land. Should the new commonwealth of Australia, in its eager desire to create varied industries, decide upon a system of inter-colonial free trade, with protection against the rest of the world, including Britain, no one would now anticipate therefrom any fundamental change {279} in the political relations between mother-land and colony.

Compared with all other nations, these conditions seem extremely anomalous. They are accounted for by the fact that the Empire itself is in its composition anomalous. In it we find communities existing under widely different conditions, some with vast populations concentrated in a small space, while others have their inhabitants thinly scattered over immense areas; some with wealth which lends itself readily to direct taxation, others which can only collect revenue easily at the ports; some chiefly engaged in manufacture, others in the production of food and raw material; some with capital and cheap labour in such abundance that they can cheerfully face any competitors, others under severe pressure from the competition of commercially hostile neighbours more rich and numerous than themselves. Economic theories are, in fact, being tested throughout the Empire under almost every conceivable condition, to the ultimate advantage, we may hope, of economic truth. Meanwhile, though no serious jar in the national system has as yet been caused by the divergence of trade policies, this divergence is looked upon by many as an almost insuperable obstacle to any closer political union. It is urged that a real national unity cannot exist without community of fiscal system, and in support of this position appeal is made to the examples of the United States, Germany, Austro-Hungary, Switzerland and Canada. In all of these {280} free internal trade followed upon the formation of a Federal system.

How, it is often said in England, can we unite more closely with countries which in trade matters are almost as hostile to us as France, Germany, or the United States? How, it is said in the colonies, can we unite more closely with a mother-land which in trade matters makes no distinction between her greatest enemy and ourselves?

Of late, as the pressure of hostile tariffs in foreign countries has been more severely felt, the tone of reproach is more distinct in England than in the colonies.

The slightest historical retrospect shows that this is not justified. The system by which each self-governing division of the Empire regulates its trade policy in accord with what it conceives to be its own interests, treating other parts of the Empire exactly as it does foreigners was not initiated by colonists, but by the people of the United Kingdom, in connection with the adoption of Free Trade in 1846. Previous to that period mutually beneficial trade relations, both as regards exports and imports, existed between the mother-land and the colonies. Many of the colonies, and especially Canada, protested vehemently against this change of national policy and suffered severely from the complete reversal of the trade relations which had previously existed. Given almost ostentatiously to understand that the mother-land was indifferent to the trade {281} policy which they pursued, the colonies were free, without any reproach on their national allegiance, to choose the system which seemed best adapted to their wants. On the one side they saw the United Kingdom wonderfully prosperous under Free Trade. On the other they saw the United States sweeping along in an equally wonderful career of prosperity under a system of Protection. The conditions prevailing in the United States seemed, of the two, more similar to their own, and it cannot be doubted that this example has had much to do with the adoption of Protective systems in most of the colonies. The wisdom or error of the choice remains to be demonstrated, for clearly all systems of Protection are yet on their trial. Are they expedients to accomplish a temporary purpose, or are they permanent policies?

Even in the United States there have been elections which indicated a distinct wavering of the public mind upon the question. In Canada the party which favours Free Trade is neither small nor unimportant. In Australia one of the chief objects aimed at in Federation is the freedom of inter-colonial trade which will be one of its conditions. Protection against the outside world will at first probably be another, but Sir Henry Parkes and other supporters of Federation have expressed the most confident belief in the ultimate prevalence of Free Trade principles over the Australian continent. He would be a bold prophet who would undertake to say whether Protection or {282} Free Trade would ten years hence be the policy of the United States, Canada or Australia, strong as is the hold which the former now has in each.

On the other hand, there is a prevalent opinion in Canada, and in other colonies as well, that the United Kingdom will yet be driven to recede to some extent from her Free Trade position. It is observed that however correct may be the economic principles on which Free Trade is based, national passion has prevailed over economic truth, and most of the nations of the world continue to erect higher and higher barriers against the trade of the United Kingdom, thereby falsifying the forecasts of the early apostles of Free Trade. More than this, it is seen that the United States, while given free access to English markets, not only creates a McKinley tariff to keep out English goods, but by offering Free Trade to Canada at the price of discrimination against Britain, practically, though perhaps not intentionally, uses the trade question as a leverage to break up the Empire. It is believed that, under the influence of considerations such as these, a decided reaction has in Britain begun in the direction of some modified system of Protection within the Empire.

Are there grounds to justify this opinion?

Certain it is that many Members of Parliament, representing both rural and manufacturing constituencies, openly avow their preference for a discriminating tariff within the Empire, and for fighting the commercial hostility of other nations by the use of similar {283} weapons, and appear to lose no political strength by the avowal. Twice has the Convention of Conservative delegates broken away from its leaders, and passed what amounted to Fair Trade resolutions. Liberal and Conservative representatives of labour constituencies have alike affirmed of late years that they find the working man's mind permeated with Fair Trade ideas, ideas which might become a serious political force in any period of prolonged industrial depression. A mayor of the greatest of English manufacturing towns told me in the very home of Free Trade that in his opinion England might yet have to revise her commercial policy. The leading silk-manufacturer of Yorkshire is an ardent advocate of Fair Trade principles. The heads of different great woollen and other manufacturing firms in the same county have told me that their judgment inclined them in the same direction. Joseph Cowen, the distinguished representative of northern Radicalism has said, that he looked upon a British Zollverein as the true ideal of our national statesmanship. When Sir Charles Tupper urged upon the late W. E. Forster the advisability of giving the outlying parts of the Empire a better commercial footing than foreign countries, his reply was: 'Well, I am a free trader, but I am not so fanatical a free trader that I would not be willing to adopt such a policy as that for the great and important object of binding this Empire together.'

The Times, commenting upon a speech of Sir {284} Gordon Sprigg advocating a commercial union between England and her colonies, said:—

'There is still a considerable amount of fetish-worship, but the ideas upon which any commercial union must rest will not in future incur the furious and unswerving hostility that would have greeted them twenty years ago. It is getting to be understood that Free Trade is made for man, not man for Free Trade, and any changes that may be proposed will have a better chance of being discussed upon their own merits rather than in the light of high-and-dry theory backed by outcries of the thin edge of the wedge. The British Empire is so large and so completely self-supporting, that it could very well afford, for the sake of serious political gain, to surround itself with a moderate fence.'

And again, discussing a resolution passed in the Dominion House of Commons in favour of preferential trade with Great Britain, the same journal has lately said:—

'We have not disguised our opinion that if the colonies as a whole, and without arrière pensée, were prepared to enter into a Customs Union with the mother-country on mutually advantageous terms, there would be a strong body of public opinion in favour of meeting the offer, if possible, even at the cost of some departure from the rigorous doctrines of Free Trade. … If, by not too great a departure from the strict lines of Free Trade, it were possible to bind the great self-governing colonies in close {285} and permanent commercial alliance with the mother country, securing not only a vast reserve of political strength but the command of large and rapidly growing markets, it would probably be thought well worth while to incur some sacrifice. When nations like the United States, Russia, and France are strengthening their exclusive systems against us, and when central Europe is involved in a network of commercial treaties, it is not pleasant to contemplate the possibility that, under protective tariffs of increasing stringency, our colonial trade may slip from us, and the political allegiance of our colonial subjects may be gradually broken down.'

In expressions such as these, which might be multiplied, those who advocate a return to preferential trade relations within the Empire find proof of a great change in English public opinion. But after all has been said that can be said it is clear to any unprejudiced observer that on the whole an overwhelming majority of the people of the United Kingdom still sincerely regard free trade with all the world as necessary to the welfare of the masses, and to the stability of the vast industries of the country. No political party would as yet dare to face an election on a platform of Protection or Fair Trade. The reason is obvious. Dependence on sources of food supply outside the Empire is still so great that any change of policy would be thought to involve great risk and anxiety. Though a few years of strenuous effort would doubtless make the Empire self-sufficing in the {286} matter of food, still those few years of transition would be a critical period. Clear thinkers outside of the United Kingdom recognize this. It is well known how strongly Sir John Macdonald held the opinion that the Empire would be strengthened and drawn together by preferential trade between its different communities. Yet he said to me in 1889: 'Till England sees that we can feed her or with a little encouragement can do so, we must not expect to work out Federation on a trade basis. But as soon as we have proved what our North West can do and English people see that they can get all the wheat they want from ourselves and the other colonies, the English point of view, will change, and trade advantage can be made to supplement the other forces which make for British unity.' Sir Charles Tupper argues for immediate discrimination, but he as fully recognizes that it should not affect the prices of food for the vast masses which, in England, depend on outside supplies.

He has given illustrations which he thinks indicate that a fiscal arrangement which favours the productions of the colonies would not result in raising the price of food materially in Great Britain, while it would give stimulus to colonial industry and increase the colonial market for British manufactures to the great advantage of the British working man.

He points out that the Mark Lane prices of corn during the year 1890 and 1891, as shown by the report of the Board of Agriculture, indicate a fluctuation {287} in price of ten shillings a quarter, and it was only when the maximum advance of ten shillings a quarter was reached that a half-penny difference was made upon the four-pound loaf. From this fact he draws the conclusion that five shillings a quarter could be imposed upon foreign wheat without making any appreciable advance in the price of bread.

A second illustration he draws from the meat supply. In consequence of the existence of pleuro-pneumonia in the United States, cattle sent from that country to Great Britain have to be slaughtered upon their arrival, while the freedom of Canada from the disease exempts Canadian cattle from this regulation. The advantage given to Canada by this distinction is estimated by Mr. Rush, the highest American authority upon the subject, at between eight and twelve dollars a head. The result has been an immense expansion of this trade for Canada, which last year sent 123,000 head of cattle to England, for which Canadian stock raisers would receive about a million dollars more than Americans would obtain for the same number of cattle, while Sir Charles Tupper claims that no one has even suggested that any difference has thereby been made in the price of meat. Lastly, he points to the experience of France and Germany, where, after a much higher duty had been imposed on corn, the cost of bread was less than before[1].

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But if the price of wheat be not changed, what, it is asked, will be the advantage to the colonies, and what is to be the compensation to the mother-country for making the change?

The colonial advantage will come from the new direction given to emigration. The great numbers of emigrants who now go under a foreign flag to produce the grain and other food which the United Kingdom buys will go to British countries where they will enjoy the advantage of the easier access to British markets and by so doing will add to the wealth and strength of the colonies and the Empire.

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To understand the anticipated advantage to the mother-country we must study some extremely suggestive facts connected with inter-imperial trade.

Man for man the people of the colonies, leaving out India, consume British products out of all proportion to foreigners. The figures fluctuate from year to year, but taking the countries with which the United Kingdom carries on the greatest amount of trade a sufficiently accurate average can be given of the ordinary annual consumption per head of British manufactures in each. In Germany and the United States this consumption is about 8s. per head, in France 9s., in Canada £1 15s., in the West Indies £2 5s., in South Africa £3, in Australasia nearly £8. Thus three or four millions of people in Australasia take more of British goods than about fifty millions of people in Germany, and nearly as much as sixty millions of people in the United States. Only an artificial boundary separates Canada from the United States, yet an emigrant who goes north of that boundary immediately begins to purchase more than three times as much of British goods as one who goes south of it. As a customer to the British artizan one Australian is worth sixteen Americans; one South African is worth seven or eight Germans. Figures such as these have suggested the remark that 'trade follows the flag.' It is perhaps a more adequate explanation to say that trade follows not merely the flag, with the protection and prestige which it gives, but that it follows along the line of {290} the tastes, customs and habits of life which the emigrant carries with him; along the line of intimate social and financial connection such as that which exists between England and her colonies. The lowest prices current do not altogether determine the direction of commerce. Social, political, financial and even sentimental considerations unite to create the wants of a people and so in a measure to give tendencies to trade.

Putting all these facts together it is claimed that a national policy which inclined emigration towards the colonies would create with great rapidity new markets for British products and would send back in increasing volume the productions which Britain wants to buy, while adding greatly to the strength and self-sustaining capacity of the whole nation. Hence it is that many advocates of British unity sincerely believe that the adoption of preferential trade relations within the Empire is the readiest way to the great end in view. They hold that trade advantage constitutes the best outward token of national union, and by its sense of common benefit would do more than anything else to make all willing to contribute to national expense.

This view is held very strongly in Canada, South Africa and the West Indies: less importance is attached to it in New Zealand and still less in Australia.

It should not be wondered at in England that Canadians bent upon the maintenance of British connection think of preferential trade relations with {291} the mother-land as a way of escape from the anomalous position in which they have of late been placed. 'Let it be clearly understood,' says Principal Grant, 'that Canada has only two markets worth speaking of. One of these, Great Britain, she shares on equal terms with every foreign nation, and from the other, the United States, she is debarred as long as she is connected with Britain. The former would be as open to her as it is now were she to unite commercially with the Republic and against Britain, and, were she to do so, she would then at once get the other market also.' Is it right or politic, he asks, that an important part of the Empire should be left to such a choice? Principal Grant, however, goes further, and argues that a preferential arrangement within the Empire would only be required as a temporary measure, and would really lead to the Free Trade relations which are desired with the United States. 'So all-important,' he says, 'is the British market to the United States voter, that the mere prospect of a preference being given in it to his rivals would be enough to bring him to a business frame of mind; he thoroughly believes in the "cash value of his markets," and would be ready to give, for what he believes to be a sufficient consideration, that value which he will never dream of giving for nothing.'

While the Canadian accustomed to the thought of protection would thus build up the Empire, strengthen the union, and deepen the sense of nationality by preferential trade relations, the English Free Trader {292} suggests another solution. He says to Canada: Throw down your tariff walls against English manufactures, so far at any rate as your revenue necessities permit, and thereby make Canada the one cheap country to live in on the American continent. When your farmer buys his clothes, builds his house, gets his machinery, his earthenware, his hardware at a far lower cost than the farmer who is being bled to satisfy the McKinley tariff, he will then have an advantage over his competitors far greater than could be given by a preferential tariff in England. Your North-West will be filled with immigrants crowding even from the United States to the centre of cheap living and therefore cheap production; your Eastern farmer will have an increased profit on the meat, the poultry, the eggs, the fruit which he sends to the British or the American market; British capital will flow freely into the country; railroads, canals, ports, shipping will feel the pressure and the prosperity of inward and outward trade; manufactures suitable to each locality will increase with the greater prosperity of the country and the diminished cost of living. Even the McKinley tariff may be forced to give way in face of the striking illustration which Canada would give on the American continent, of the benefits flowing from free commercial movement. The farmer of the Western States, handicapped beside the farmer of the Canadian North-West, would in all probability use his vote to compel the Eastern manufacturer to come to terms with England and Canada.

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But even if other nations refused to yield to such influences, an empire covering one fifth of the world, and capable of producing everything required by man, would have before it, under a system of free commercial intercourse and common citizenship, a period of prosperity unparalleled in the history of the world.

The venerable Earl Grey, in an appeal specially addressed to the Canadian people—an appeal which has stamped upon every sentence good-will for Canada, and sincere regard for her interests—has urged that the Dominion should not merely throw open its markets to England, but to the United States as well, and argues with all the earnestness of his youthful convictions that such a course would not only bring to Canada the same prosperity which Free Trade brought to England, but, on account of Canada's peculiar relations to the United States, would go far to break down all systems of excessive protection.

We have then, in matters of trade, great variations of system between the different communities of the Empire, and great differences of opinion within each of the communities themselves.

Does this conflict of thought upon trade policy present an insuperable obstacle to national unity? There are those who claim that mutually advantageous trade relations furnish the only basis on which it is worth while to discuss Imperial Federation with any hope of practical result. This opinion is held alike by some who look to preferential treatment, and {294} others who look to exceptional freedom of interchange within the Empire for the necessary bond.

With this extreme view I have never been able to agree. Even without trade advantage between its parts there are decisive reasons why the nation should present a united front to the world. Unity is essential to safety, as I have tried to prove, and at any moment the outbreak of a great war may make safe trade of more vital consequence for British people than either Free Trade or trade depending on tariffs. The wealth created by either must be defended, and with the least possible burden on the individual community. A common system of defence therefore seems of itself a sufficient justification for close political union. This is a permanent condition.

On the other hand, it can scarcely be questioned that ideas on trade policy all around the world are in a state of flux. That systems now existing may be modified, perhaps reversed, within a few years, is not only possible, but highly probable. The greater freedom or greater restriction of trade is a temporary condition[2].

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That the temporary difficulty of conflicting tariffs should be a bar to the attainment of permanent national security, seems, on the face of it, absurd.

In any attempt at Federal organization it would probably at first be necessary to leave to each community the choice of the method by which its revenues are raised. To do so would not apparently put too great a strain on the admitted flexibility of the Federal system. But it can scarcely be doubted that one of the first effects of a close political union, in which common ends are constantly kept in view, and the strength and prosperity of each part are an immediate concern to all, would be to break down by degrees all existing barriers to the advantageous movement of inter-imperial commerce.

[1] On this point Lord Dunraven says—Nineteenth Century, March, 1891: 'The duty on wheat in France in 1882 was only 2 8d. per cwt.; in 1885 it was raised to 15d. per cwt., or 536 per cent. According to some economists, the price of wheat should have gone up in like proportion, and the masses have had to pay dearer for their bread. But what are the facts 1 The price of wheat actually fell from an average of 10.085. per cwt. in 1883, the year following the low duty, to 9.295. in 1886, the year following the increased duty, or 8 per cent. Instead of the poor man in France having to pay dearer for his bread, he paid less in 1886 than in 1883, as the following table shows:—

BREAD 1883 1884 1885 1886
First Quality 1.57 1.49 1.39 1.39
Second Quality 1.35 1.26 1.17 1.22
Third Quality 1.17 1.13 1.04 1.09

In Germany, too, I find the same results follow from increased duties. Wheat went down from 10.30s. per cwt. in 1882, when the duty was 6d. per cwt., to 9.39s. per cwt. in 1889, or 9 per cent. when the duty was 2s. 6d., per cwt—or 500 per cent. higher, while bread remained at about the same price. Internal development appears in both these cases to have more than compensated for any restriction of foreign imports, and it is only fair to remember that the resources of the British Empire in respect of food supply are immeasurably greater than those of France or Germany.'

[2] Prof. Shield Nicholson quotes Adam Smith's sentence: 'To expect that the freedom of trade would ever be entirely restored in Great Britain is as absurd as to expect that an Oceana or Utopia should ever be established in it,' and goes on to say: 'this curious example of the danger of political prophecy-should suffice to dispel the apathy generally displayed towards any consideration of the fiscal aspects of Britannic confederation … Nothing is more common than to speak of the complicated tariffs and the vested interests of the newest colonies as insuperable obstacles to any general fiscal reform. As a matter of historical fact, however, in much less than a century the commercial policy of the British Empire has passed, speaking broadly, from the extreme of central regulation to the extreme of non-interference, and there is, prima facie, no reason why a reaction should not occur if such a course is shown to be to the mutual advantage of the colonies and the mother-country.'

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CHAPTER XIV.

PLANS. CONCLUSION.

'There is not the least probability that the British constitution would be hurt by the union of Great Britain with the colonies, That constitution, on the contrary, would be completed by it, and seems to be imperfect without it. The assembly which deliberates and decides concerning the affairs of every part of the Empire, in order to be properly informed, ought certainly to have representatives from every part of it. That this union, however, could be easily effectuated, or that difficulties and great difficulties might not occur in the execution, I do not pretend. I have yet heard of none, however, which appear insurmountable.'——Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations.

THE advocates of national consolidation have been constantly subjected, as everyone familiar with current discussion knows, to two diametrically opposite forms of criticism. They are vigorously reproached by writers like Mr. Goldwin Smith for not stating in detail the method by which their purposes are to be accomplished; they are ridiculed by others as people who aim at binding together by means of a 'cut and dried plan' an Empire which has hitherto depended upon slow processes of growth for its constitutional development. It will be well to form a just estimate of these contradictory lines of criticism.

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The demand so often made for a formal and detailed statement of the precise constitutional methods by which national unity is to be secured appears to me to be put forward in defiance of the teachings of history. The grounds upon which this opinion is based are obvious to anyone who studies the methods by which Federal organization has been effected in the past.

Take first the case of the United States. The time between the recognition of American Independence in 1783 and the adoption of the Federal constitution in 1788 has been well called the 'critical period of American history.' During this period of strenuous agitation Alexander Hamilton, Madison, and other American statesmen had freely discussed in a general way their ideas upon Federal union, and had made many but widely divergent attempts to outline the main principles upon which it should be based.

Still, when the famous convention which met in 1787, eleven years after the declaration of independence, entered upon its discussions, it had to deal, not with any single plan, but with many contradictory plans, brought forward by states or individuals. It is now known that weeks and indeed months spent in anxious consultation elapsed before even the most sanguine among the delegates began to feel assurance that a plan which would harmonize conflicting ideas could be devised. Even when the Federal constitution was at length drafted, and Alexander Hamilton, at the last session of the convention, made {298} a final plea for its adoption, he emphasized his demand for the sacrifice of personal preferences by pointing out how remote its provisions were from the ideas which he had at the outset entertained and had indeed supported throughout the discussions. It was at a later period that Hamilton and other leaders of the Federation movement made their contributions to the famous 'Federalist,' a series of discussions avowedly written with a view to secure popular support for a plan which had previously, however, only been elaborated by the united wisdom of the trained statesmanship of the country[1].

The discussion of Canadian Confederation had been conducted only upon general lines up to the time when the leading public men of Canada, drawn alike from all political parties, met in conference at Quebec in 1866. The Federal system of the United States had given general direction to the public thought, but the actual scheme by which Confederation was accomplished had been barely outlined in the minds of a few of the principal delegates; the resolutions at first proposed were submitted to much criticism and revision, and the final form of the constitution was only adopted after weeks of earnest discussion. Even Sir John Macdonald admitted that on the quite {299} fundamental question of whether the union should or should not be Legislative, he only yielded his own convictions to the manifest objection of the majority in the Conference.

The agitation for Federal Union in Australia has gone on for many years; the examples of both the United States and Canada have been open to Australian study, and hence the easy construction of a system might have been assumed. Yet it was only when the responsible statesmen of the different colonies, and of the different political parties in these colonies, had met in general conference that a formal plan other than the essays of amateurs was placed before the public.

We have in our own generation seen the union of Italy and that of Germany consummated under the strain of intense national passion, and yet we know that even the chief agents in working out those great movements could only feel their way as they went along, taking advantage of opportunities and advancing with the advance of public sentiment—and that it was only when near their goal that they saw clearly the precise form which national unity would take.

One may therefore with some confidence appeal to history in support of the position that no great work of national consolidation has ever been carried out which started from a defined initial plan. The plan has been the crown of effort, not its starting-point.

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For this there are two manifest reasons. Years of discussion and agitation are almost necessary, especially under free popular constitutions, before that public opinion can be formed which enables statesmen to determine what sacrifices or concessions communities are willing to make to secure even a great end. Again, only statesmen practically and closely in touch with the people, familiar with the passions or prejudices of the communities concerned, and accustomed, moreover, to the work of practical administration, are able to give adequate constitutional expression to aspirations or desires for unity—necessarily more or less vague even when vehement; they alone can judge where compromise or concession must be made, or where it would be fatal.

It is on such grounds as these that advocates of the more complete political unity of the Empire have hitherto chiefly confined themselves, to pointing out the fundamental defects of the existing system, to the inculcation of principles, the study of facts, and the dissemination of information bearing upon the question. They have directed their efforts to bringing about conferences of statesmen duly qualified to deal with the questions at issue, and at the same time to creating a public opinion which would justify such conferences in taking vigorous action. They have felt that the formulation of detailed plans should be left for statesmen who had received a mandate from the people, and who would be responsible to the people for the results of their decisions.

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This policy constitutes the best answer to those who ridicule or reproach them with attempting to bind the Empire together by some preconceived system of their own. The only plan to which they look forward is such a one as may be the outcome of the will of the people and the wisdom of responsible statesmen representing the different parts of the Empire.

While the demand for a formal and detailed plan is illogical, the suggestion of plans is useful and helpful so far as they give definiteness to men's thought, and so help to form or strengthen public opinion.

But in approaching the study of possible plans we are met by a primary consideration.

There are clearly two ways in which national unity might be attained. One would be by a great act of constructive statesmanship, such as that which gave a constitution to the United States, that which confederated Canada, that which is doing the same for Australia, that which in other states has changed an old system for a new. Such an effort is what people have undertaken when they saw before them a great national problem, knew distinctly what they wished to accomplish, and were ready to run the risks always involved in radical change for the sake of the end to be obtained by new organization. To make such an effort requires statesmen with courage to lead, and with judgment to plan so as to command public approval; courage and judgment such as {302} those which unified Germany and Italy, or those which federated the United States and Canada. On a smaller scale we have in the history of the United Kingdom examples of this bold and definite statesmanship, as opposed to slow constitutional growth and change, in the acts of Union with Ireland and Scotland, or in the Reform Bills of half a century ago which gave to the vast but newly-formed industrial centres their true weight in the government of the country. To make decisive constitutional changes to meet distinct national necessities is strictly in keeping with our political traditions. An attempt to federate the Empire by a great act of political reconstruction would therefore differ from other events in our history not so much in kind as in degree. If the task to be undertaken seems great, we must remember that it would be faced in order to deal with facts of national growth and change without precedent in human history.

It can scarcely be denied that at any time circumstances may arise which would almost compel such an act of reconstruction. The demand of a single great colony to know the terms on which it might remain within the Empire as an alternative to independence would make the question practical at once. A great struggle for national safety or national existence would probably have the same effect. That the public mind should be prepared to deal intelligently with such a question is the strongest reason for the careful education of popular opinion on all matters relating to our national position.

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There is, however, another very different method by which the object in view may be attained or at least approached with the prospect of final attainment. Instead of radical change and reconstruction we may look to a policy of gradual but steady adaptation of existing national machinery to the new work which must be done.

This method commends itself more especially to thinkers in the mother-land, who are accustomed to consider that the supreme merit of the British institution consists in the fact that it is not a written rule,—not a system struck off at white heat by the efforts of legislators, but is, in the main, the result of a progressive historical development. To them further progress would seem safer if pursued on similar lines. The policy seems of less consequence to colonists, living as they do in countries going through rapid changes, and lending themselves more readily to new organization.

The ideal of Federation which naturally presents itself to the mind is one which provides a supreme Parliament or Council, national not merely in name but in reality, because containing in just proportion representatives of all the self-governing communities of the Empire. Such a body, relegating the management of local affairs to local Governments, and devoting its attention to a clearly defined range of purely Imperial concerns, would seem to satisfy a great national necessity. It would secure representation for all the great interests of the Empire, it {304} would bring together those best fitted to give advice on Imperial matters, and it would be free from that overwhelming responsibility for petty administration which now paralyzes, and at times renders ridiculous, the supreme council of the greatest nation in the world.

This, it seems to me, is the ideal which must be kept in view as the ultimate goal of our national aspiration and effort. It is a reasonable ideal, one which, as we have seen, long since commended itself to the philosophic mind of Adam Smith, and which has today, under the changed conditions of intercourse, infinitely more to justify it, and infinitely less to hinder its attainment than in his time. Even Burke, to whom it also occurred as a reasonable political conception, would have hesitated to employ the phrase, opposuit natura, with which he dismissed it, could he have grasped the possibility of what steam and the telegraph have done during the last half century. The realization of some such an ideal as this—a common representative body, Parliament or Council, directing the common policy of the Empire, while absolute independence of local government is secured for the various members—may fairly be looked upon as the only ultimate alternative to national disintegration, the only thing which can fully satisfy our Anglo-Saxon instincts of self-government, and give finality to our political system.

Meanwhile I have found that practical statesmen throughout the Empire, even those most devoted to {305} the cause of national unity, while recognizing that the difficulties constantly tend to diminish, look upon the immediate realization of this ideal as impracticable, or as involving too great a political effort, too sweeping a change in the existing machinery of national government. They turn themselves to the consideration of measures which will by gradual steps and a process of constitutional growth lead up to the desired end.

Prominent among such measures must be placed the proposal to summon periodical conferences of duly qualified representatives of the great colonies to consult with the home government and with each other on all questions of common concern. The public recognition of the right of consultation, the formal summoning of such conferences by the Head of the State, would of itself be a signal proof to the outside world of the reality of national unity, a decisive step towards its complete attainment. By bringing the leading statesmen of the colonies from time to time into immediate contact with those of the mother-land, the opportunity would be furnished for that personal understanding which becomes more and more necessary in the conduct of politics and diplomacy. In proportion as dignity is given to these conferences, and as their decisions are carried into effect, their influence on the policy of the Empire would increase till, it is believed, they would either themselves develop into an adequate Federal council, or would have gained an authority and experience entitling them to indicate the lines on which such a council could be created.

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The Conference of 1887, though merely tentative, proved how great is the variety of subjects which may usefully come under the consideration of such gatherings. New questions are constantly arising. A single illustration may be given. The right of Canada to make independent treaties has been so strongly urged by the leaders of the Opposition in the Dominion Parliament that it is difficult to see how, when next in power, they can avoid pressing the claim upon the Imperial Government. In the constitution outlined by the Australian convention at Sydney 'external affairs and treaties' were among the subjects specially reserved for the Federal Government. A prominent Victorian barrister has pointed out that this provision would bring up the whole question of the nature and limits of the Imperial connection. Newfoundland is now claiming the right to form separate treaties with foreign powers, and has thereby come into conflict with Canadian interests. It is clear that such questions should be settled on broad principles of general application. The fixing of such principles would of itself justify a conference of representatives of all the communities concerned. But conferences are occasional, and it would still be necessary to provide some means of more continuous contact between the thought of the Governments of the colonies and that of the mother-land. On this point of an adequate constitutional nexus we have many important suggestions, to a few of which reference should be made.

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Sir Frederick Pollock, in an article contributed to an English journal in March, 1891, says: 'Is there not any way, short of a gigantic constitutional experiment, of providing a visible symbol and rallying-point for the feeling of Imperial patriotism which has so notably increased within the last ten years? I think there is. One part of our constitution retains, not only in form, but in fact, the vigour of perpetual youth, and is capable of indefinite new growth as occasion may require, without doing any violence to established usage. I mean the Privy Council. From the Privy Council there have sprung within modern times the Board of Trade, the Judicial Committee, the Education Department, the Universities Committee, and virtually though not quite formally, the Local Government Board, and the several commissions now merged in the Agricultural Board. Why should there not be a Colonial and Imperial Committee of the Privy Council, on which the interests of the various parts of the Empire might be represented without the disturbance of any existing institution whatever, and whose functions might safely be left, to a large extent, to be moulded and defined by experience? … It might be summoned to confer with the Cabinet, the Foreign or Colonial Minister, the Admiralty, or the War Office, at the discretion of the Prime Minister or of the department concerned; and its proceedings would be confidential. … It is hardly needful to mention the Agents-General of the self-governing colonies as the kind of persons who {308} should be members of the Committee now suggested, being, of course, first made Privy Councillors. … I believe that such a Committee might give us something much better than a written constitution for the British Empire; it might become the centre of an unwritten one.'

In the Nineteenth Century for October, 1891, Sir Charles Tupper suggests a plan similar in principle to that of Sir Frederick Pollock, but more clearly defined. Assuming that at no distant date the Australasian and the North African groups of colonies will be federated, as the Canadian provinces now are, he proposes that each of these three great British communities shall be represented in this country by leading members of the Cabinets of the countries to which they belong, ministers going out of office when their own governments are changed, and so permanently representing the views of the government in power. Such a minister should in England be sworn ex officio a member of the Privy Council, and though not a member of the Imperial Cabinet would be in a constitutional position to be called upon to meet it on every question of foreign policy or when any question that touched the interest of a colony was being considered. To this suggestion Sir Charles Tupper lends not only the great weight of his personal authority, but he supports his proposal by the expressed opinion of men like Earl Grey, the Marquis of Lorne, W. E. Forster, and others.

Once more, Lord Thring, looking at the question {309} as a constitutional expert, has stated his opinion that the best way in which the colonies could at present directly intervene in the general policy of the Empire would be by elevating the position of Agents-General to one akin to that of a minister of a foreign state, and by giving them in addition, as members of the Privy Council, the right of constitutional access to the British Government. This, he thinks, would satisfy the immediate necessities of the case, and would pave the way for the fuller representation which must come with the fuller acceptance of national responsibility.

Nothing can more fully show the change that has come over the public mind than the fact that proposals such as these are now made by constitutional authorities and responsible public men. It illustrates a complete reversal of the policy which was assumed without question by the statesmen of the last generation. The discussion has become one not of the principle of unity, but of ways and means to arrive at the most satisfactory constitutional nexus between the mother-land and her offshoots.

But it must not be thought that discovering the precise point of constitutional connection is the only or even the most important step towards effective unity. While the constitutional question is being debated there is much which Parliaments can do, much in which every voter in the Empire, by the use of his political influence can assist, to forward the cause of political unification. Foremost among these practical measures may be put the establishment of the cheapest possible {310} postal and telegraphic communication. The practical advantages which would flow from an inter-Imperial system of Penny Postage have been so often and so effectively presented by those who have given special attention to the question, that it is unnecessary to dwell upon them here. But from another aspect it may be said that when the emigrant of the remotest colony knows that, because he is a British citizen, the penny stamp upon his letter will carry the home news of father, mother, brother or sister over all the extent of a world-wide empire, such a fact will be more to the nation than the strength of many ironclads in the stronger national sentiment, the deeper feeling of national unity which it will evoke.

The same may be said of extended and cheapened telegraphic communication, which even now makes possible an extraordinary sympathy of national thought.

The beginning which has been made in co-operation for naval defence and in the strengthening of posts essential to common security, can with advantage be carried much further than it has yet been.

The addition to the judicial committee of the Privy Council of representative judges of the greater colonies, on the same principle that Indian law is now represented, is a practical measure which would give a more complete judicial unity to the Empire, and perhaps lay the foundation of a supreme court of final appeal for the federated nation. These are but {311} illustrations of lines on which immediate action can be taken and progress made.

But the work of unifying a great nation is not one that can or should be left to legislators alone. Statesmen must have behind them the strength of a trained and intelligent public opinion; the warmth of national passion. In forming such a public opinion and developing such a passion there is abundant room for the patriotic effort of every believer in the greatness and goodness of the cause, whatever may be his walk in life.

Chambers of Commerce, by the careful and practical study which they are able to give to commercial relations; by the opportunities which their associations furnish of bringing together the representatives of those trading interests upon which the Empire has been so largely built up, should be able to exercise a profound influence on public thought, and provide important information for the guidance of political leaders.

The discussion in working men's clubs of the industrial and political relations of the Empire is most desirable. So far from being remote from the ordinary interests of the working man, such discussions would be found to touch more closely than almost any others upon his daily work, wages, and food. It may with confidence be said, that a working man who does not have some fair knowledge of inter-Imperial relations is not fit to exercise the franchise for the Imperial Parliament.

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The equipment of all public reading-rooms and working men's clubs with maps specially designed to stimulate geographical imagination, and books to furnish accurate geographical information about the Empire would serve a highly useful purpose.

Upon the journalism of the Empire a great responsibility is laid. It is only a few years since even the most prominent English journals published colonial news under the head of foreign intelligence. Canadian news came to London by way of Philadelphia. All that is now changed. Four or five of the leading London dailies, and most of the greater provincial journals, now make the careful and conscientious study of colonial problems a marked feature of their work. One suggestion perhaps remains to be made. If the British interests at stake determine such questions, the time will probably soon come when in three if not four of the outlying parts of the Empire the greatest English journals should have as able and as well paid correspondents as in the great capitals of Europe. The work of such men, devoting their time to the study of colonial conditions, would do much to make English information accurate, and to create in the colonies confidence in English opinion on their affairs.

It is a crying evil that much of the English news published in the daily Canadian press, reaches it, even now, by way of New York, and has characteristics specially given to it to meet the demands of anti-British classes of American newspaper readers. Canadian {313} journalism can alone apply the remedy of direct communication carried on under reliable control.

In schools there is an immense work to be done. The cultivation of national sentiment in the minds of the young, on the basis of sound knowledge, historical, geographical and industrial, is not only a legitimate work, but a primary duty for the schools of a country. Especially is this true of countries where good government rests on the intelligence of the masses. Above all is it true for a nation which has the great birthright of free popular institutions; which has more than once stood as the bulwark of modern liberty, as it may have to stand again; which has traditions behind and prospects ahead fitted to fire the noblest and purest enthusiasm. Somewhat extended observation has led me to conclude that there is a very great lack of historical and geographical teaching in portions of the Empire. The deficiency is most marked on the historical side in the colonies, and especially in parts of Australia; on the geographical side in the mother-land. The remark applies equally to elementary and to secondary schools. It seems a lamentable thing that any British child abroad should grow up without having felt the splendid inspiration to be drawn from the study of British history; a disgraceful thing that any British child in the mother-land should grow up to exercise the franchise without a fair idea of the geography of the Empire whose destiny will be influenced by his vote.

I appeal to the teachers of our British world, and {314} to all who have to do with the direction of its education, to remedy this deficiency. The spread of educational facilities has placed in their hands a wonderful leverage with which to give direction to the destinies of the Empire. One hesitates whether to press this duty most strongly upon those who control the 'Public' and secondary schools, which chiefly educate the professional and political classes, or the common schools which give to the voting masses most of the early training which they get. Let both equally feel the significance of this great national responsibility.

This work of giving education upon the immediate problems of national life, begun at school, should be carried on at our colleges and universities. The author of the 'Expansion of England' has shown how much can be done from a single centre and by a single teacher when the highest resources of historical knowledge and literary skill are turned to the elucidation of national problems.

By manifold agencies and influences, then, is the problem of British unity to be worked out. Our freedom, our national traditions, our institutions, our Anglo-Saxon civilization, are the common heritage of all. It is the business of all to labour for their maintenance and for their security.

[1] 'In nothing could the flexibleness of Hamilton's intellect, or the genuineness of his patriotism, have been more finely shown than in the hearty zeal and transcendant ability with which he now wrote in defence of a plan of government so different from what he would have himself proposed.'——The Critical Period of American History, p. 342, John Fiske.

[Illustration: Commercial and Strategic Chart of the British
Empire]

[Transcriber's Note: All spellings have been preserved as printed.]