"The federal is one of the oldest forms of government known,
and its adaptability to the largest as well as to the smallest
states is shown in all political formations of late years.
States in the New and in the Old World, all in their
aggregation, alike show ever a stronger tendency to adopt it.
Already all the central states of Europe are
federal--Switzerland, Germany, Austria [see AUSTRIA: A. D.
1866-1867, and 1866-1887]; and if ever the various Sclav
principalities in south-eastern Europe--the Serb, the
Albanian, the Rouman, the Bulgar, and the Czech--are to
combine, it will probably be (as Mr. Freeman so long ago as
1862 remarked) under a federal form,--though whether under
Russian or Austrian auspices, or neither, remains to be seen.
... In the German lands from early ages there has existed an
aggregation of tribes and states, some of them even of
non-German race, each of which preserved for domestic purposes
its own arrangements and laws, but was united with the rest
under one supreme head and central authority as regards its
relation to all external powers. Since 1871 all the states of
Germany 'form an eternal union for the protection of the realm
and the care of the welfare of the German people.' For
legislative purposes, under the Emperor as head, are the two
Houses of Assembly; first, the Upper House of the Federated
States, consisting of 62 members, who represent the individual
States, and thus as the guardian of State rights, answers very
closely to the Senate of the American Union, except that the
number of members coming from each state is not uniform, but
apportioned. ... Each German state has its own local
constitution and home rule for its internal affairs. Generally
there are two chambers, except in some of the smallest states,
the population of which does not much exceed in some cases
that of our larger towns. ... Since 1867 the Austro-Hungarian
monarchy has been a political Siamese twin, of which Austria
is the one body, and Hungary the other; the population of the
Austrian half is 24 millions, and that of Hungary about 16
millions. Each of the two has its own parliament; the
connecting link is the sovereign (whose civil list is raised
half by one and half by the other) and a common army, navy,
and diplomatic service, and another Over-parliament of 120
members, one-half chosen by the legislature of Hungary, and
the other half by the legislature of Austria (the Upper House
of each twin returns twenty, and the Lower of each forty
delegates from their own number, who thus form a kind of Joint
Committee of the Four Houses). The jurisdiction of this
Over-parliament is limited to foreign affairs and war. ... The
western or Austrian part of the twin ... is a federal
government in itself. ... Federated Austria consists of
seventeen distinct states. The German element constitutes 36
per cent. of the inhabitants of these, and the Sclav 57 per
cent. There are a few Magyars, Italians, and Roumanians. Each
of these seventeen states has its own provincial parliament of
one House, partly composed of ex-officio members (the bishops and
archbishops of the Latin and Greek Churches, and the
chancellors of the universities), but chiefly of
representatives chosen by all the inhabitants who pay direct
taxation. Some of these are elected by the landowners, others
by the towns, others by the trade-guilds and boards of
commerce; the representatives of the rural communes, however,
are elected by delegates, as in Prussia. They legislate
concerning all local matters, county taxation, land laws and
farming, education, public worship, and public works. ...
Turning next to the oldest federation in Europe, that of
Switzerland, which with various changes has survived from
1308, though its present constitution dates only from 1874, we
find it now embraces three nationalities--German, French,
Italian. The original nucleus of the State, however, was
German, and even now three-fourths of the population are
German. The twenty-two distinct states are federated under one
president elected annually, and the Federal Assembly of two
chambers. ... Each of the cantons is sovereign and
independent, and has its own local parliament, scarcely any
two being the same, but all based on universal suffrage. Each
canton has its own budget of revenue and expenditure, and its
own public debt."
J. N. Dalton,
The Federal States of the World
(Nineteenth Century, July, 1884).
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT:
Canadian Federation.
"A convention of thirty-three representative men was held in
the autumn of 1864 in the historic city of Quebec, and after a
deliberation of several weeks the result was the unanimous
adoption of a set of seventy-two resolutions embodying the
terms and conditions on which the provinces through their
delegates agreed to a federal union in many respects similar
in its general features to that of the United States
federation, and in accordance with the principles of the
English constitution. These resolutions had to be laid before
the various legislatures and adopted in the shape of addresses
to the queen whose sanction was necessary to embody the wishes
of the provinces in an imperial statute. ... In the early part
of 1867 the imperial parliament, without a division, passed
the statute known as the 'British North America Act, 1867,'
which united in the first instance the province of Canada, now
divided into Ontario and Quebec, with Nova Scotia and New
Brunswick and made provisions for the coming in of the other
provinces of Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, British
Columbia, and the admission of Rupert's Land and the great
North-west. Between 1867 and 1873 the provinces just named,
with the exception of Newfoundland, which has persistently
remained out of the federation, became parts of the Dominion
and the vast Northwest Territory was at last acquired on terms
eminently satisfactory to Canada and a new province of great
promise formed out of that immense region, with a complete
system of parliamentary government. ... When the terms of the
Union came to be arranged between the provinces in 1864, their
conflicting interest had to be carefully considered and a system
adopted which would always enable the Dominion to expand its
limits and bring in new sections until it should embrace the
northern half of the continent, which, as we have just shown,
now constitutes the Dominion. It was soon found, after due
deliberation, that the most feasible plan was a confederation
resting on those principles which experience of the working of
the federation of the United States showed was likely to give
guarantees of elasticity and permanency. The maritime
provinces had been in the enjoyment of an excellent system of
laws and representative institutions for many years, and were
not willing to yield their local autonomy in its entirety. The
people of the province of Quebec, after experience of a union
that lasted from 1841 to 1867, saw decidedly great advantages
to themselves and their institutions in having a provincial
government under their own control. The people of Ontario
recognized equal advantages in having a measure of local
government, apart from French Canadian influences and
interference. The consequence was the adoption of the federal
system, which now, after twenty-six years' experience, we can
truly say appears on the whole well devised and equal to the
local and national requirements of the people."
J. G. Bourinot,
Federal Government in Canada
(Johns Hopkins University Studies, 7th Series,
numbers 10-13), lectures 1-2.
{1112}
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT:
Britannic Federation, Proposed.
"The great change which has taken place in the public mind in
recent years upon the importance to the Empire of maintaining
the colonial connection found expression at a meeting held at
the Westminster Palace Hotel in July 1884, under the guidance
of the Right Hon. W. E. Forster, who occupied the chair. At
that meeting--which was attended by a large number of members
of Parliament of both parties, and representatives of the
colonies--it was moved by the Right Hon. W. H. Smith: 'That,
in order to secure the permanent unity of the Empire, some
form of federation is essential.' That resolution was seconded
by the Earl of Rosebery, and passed unanimously. In November
of the same year the Imperial Federation League was formed to
carry out the objects of that resolution; and the subject has
received considerable attention since. ... I believe all are
agreed that the leading objects of the Imperial Federation
League are to find means by which the colonies, the outlying
portions of the Empire, may have a certain voice and weight
and influence in reference to the foreign policy of this
country, in which they are all deeply interested, and
sometimes more deeply interested than the United Kingdom
itself. In the next place, that measures may be taken by which
all the power and weight and influence that these great
British communities in Australasia, in South Africa, and in
Canada possess shall be brought into operation for the
strengthening and defence of the Empire. The discussion of
these questions has led to a great deal of progress. We have
got rid of a number of fallacies that obtained in the minds of
a good many persons in relation to the means by which those
objects are to be attained. Most people have come to the
conclusion stated by Lord Rosebery at the Mansion House, that
a Parliamentary Federation, if practicable, is so remote, that
during the coming century it is not likely to make any very great
advance. We have also got rid of the fallacy that it was
practicable to have a common tariff throughout the Empire. It
is not, in my opinion, consistent with the constitution either
of England or of the autonomous colonies. The tariff of a
country must rest of necessity mainly with the Government of
the day, and involves such continual change and alteration as
to make uniformity impracticable. ... I regard the time as
near at hand when the great provinces of Australasia will be
confederated under one Government. ... When that has been done
it will be followed, I doubt not, at a very early day, by a
similar course on the part of South Africa, and then we shall
stand in the position of having three great dominions,
commonwealths, or realms, or whatever name is found most
desirable on the part of the people who adopt them--three
great British communities, each under one central and strong
Government. When that is accomplished, the measure which the
Marquis of Lorne has suggested, of having the representatives
of these colonies during the term of their office here in
London, practically Cabinet Ministers, will give to the
Government of England an opportunity of learning in the most
direct and complete manner the views and sentiments of each of
those great British communities in regard to all questions of
foreign policy affecting the colonies. I would suggest that
the representatives of those three great British communities
here in London should be leading members of the Cabinet of the
day of the country they represent, going out of office when
their Government is changed. In that way they would always
represent the country, and necessarily the views of the party
in power in Canada, in Australasia, and in South Africa. That
would involve no constitutional change; it would simply
require that whoever represented those dominions in London
should have a seat in their own Parliament, and be a member of
the Administration."
C. Tupper,
Federating the Empire (Nineteenth Century,
October, 1891).
"Recent expensive wars at the Cape, annexations of groups of
islands in the neighbourhood of Australia, the Fishery and
other questions that have arisen, and may arise, on the North
American continent, have all compelled us to take a review of
our responsibilities in connection with our Colonies and to
consider how far, in the event of trouble, we may rely upon
their assistance to adequately support the commercial
interests of our scattered Empire. It is remarkable that,
although the matters here indicated are slowly coming to the
surface, and have provoked discussion, they have not been
forced upon the public attention suddenly, or by any violent
injury or catastrophe. The review men are taking of our
position, and the debates as to how best we can make our
relationships of standing value, have been the natural outcome
of slowly developing causes and effects. Politicians belonging
to both of the great parties in the State have joined the
Federation League. The leaders have expressly declared that
they do not desire at the present moment to propound any
definite theories, or to push any premature scheme for closer
union of the Empire. The society has been formed for the
purpose of discussing any plans proposed for such objects. The
suggestions actually made have varied in importance from
comprehensive projects of universal commercial union and
common contributions for a world-wide military and naval
organization, to such a trivial proposal as the personal
recognition of distinguished colonists by a nomination to the
peerage."
The Marquis of Lorne,
Imperial Federation,
chapter 1.
{1113}
"Many schemes of federation have been propounded, and many
degrees of federal union are possible. Lord Rosebery has not
gone further, as yet, than the enunciation of a general
principle. 'The federation we aim at (he has said) is the
closest possible union of the various self-governing States
ruled by the British Crown, consistently with that free
development which is the birthright of British subjects all
over the world--the closest union in sympathy, in external
action, and in defence.' ... The representation of the
Colonies in the Privy Council has been viewed with favour,
both by statesmen and by theoretical writers. Earl Grey has
proposed the appointment of a Federal Committee, selected from
the Privy Council, to advise with the Secretary of State for
the Colonies. The idea thus shadowed forth has been worked out
with greater amplitude of detail by Mr. Creswell, in an essay to
which the prize offered by the London Chamber of Commerce was
awarded. 'The Imperial assembly which we want,' says Mr.
Creswell, 'must be an independent body, constitutional in its
origin, representative in its character, and supreme in its
decisions. Such a body we have already in existence in the
Privy Council. Its members are chosen, irrespective of party
considerations, from among the most eminent of those who have
done service to the State. To this body colonists of
distinguished public service could be elected. In constituting
the Imperial Committee of the Privy Council, representation
might be given to every part of the empire, in proportion to
the several contributions to expenditure for Imperial
defence.' The constitution of a great Council of the Empire,
with similar functions in relation to foreign affairs to those
which are exercised in the United States by a Committee of the
Senate, is a step for which public opinion is not yet
prepared. In the meanwhile the utmost consideration is being
paid at the Foreign Office to Colonial feelings and interests.
No commitments or engagements are taken which would not be
approved by Colonial opinion. Another proposal which has been
warmly advocated, especially by the Protectionists, is that
for a customs-union between the Mother-country and the
Colonies. It cannot be said that at the present time proposals
for a customs-union are ripe for settlement, or even for
discussion, at a conference of representatives from all parts
of the empire. The Mother-country has been committed for more
than a generation to the principle of Free-trade. By our
policy of free imports of food and raw materials we have so
cheapened production that we are able to compete successfully
with all comers in the neutral markets of the world. ... It
would be impossible to entertain the idea of a reversal of our
fiscal policy, in however restricted a sense, without careful and
exhaustive inquiry. ... Lord Rosebery has recently declared
that in his opinion it is impracticable to devise a scheme of
representation for the Colonies in the House of Commons and
House of Lords, or in the Privy Council. The scheme of an
Imperial customs-union, ably put forward by Mr. Hoffmeyer at
the last Colonial Conference, he equally rejects. Lord
Rosebery would limit the direct action of the Imperial
Government for the present to conferences, summoned at
frequent intervals. Our first conference was summoned by the
Government at the instance of the Imperial Federation League.
It was attended by men of the highest distinction in the
Colonies. Its deliberations were guided by Lord Knutsford with
admirable tact and judgment; it considered many important
questions of common interest to the different countries of the
empire; it arrived at several important decisions, and it
cleared the air of not a few doubts and delusions. The most
tangible, the most important, and the most satisfactory result
of that conference was the recognition by the Australian
colonies of the necessity for making provision for the naval
defence of their own waters by means of ships, provided by the
Government of the United Kingdom, but maintained by the
Australian Governments. Lord Rosebery holds that the question
of Imperial Federation depends for the present on frequent
conferences. In his speech at the Mansion House he laid down
the conditions essential to the success of conferences in the
future. They must be held periodically and at stated
intervals. The Colonies must send the best men to represent
them. The Government of the Mother-country must invest these
periodical congresses with all the authority and splendour
which it is in their power to give. The task to be
accomplished will not be the production of statutes, but the
production of recommendations. Those who think that a congress
that only meets to report and recommend has but a neutral task
before it, have a very inadequate idea of the influence which
would be exercised by a conference representing a quarter of
the human race, and the immeasurable opulence and power that
have been garnered up by the past centuries of our history. If
we have these conferences, if they are allowed to discuss, as
they must be allowed to discuss, all topics which any parties
to these conferences should recommend to be discussed, Lord
Rosebery cannot apprehend that they would be wanting in
authority or in weight. Lord Salisbury, in his speeches
recently delivered in reply to the Earl of Dunraven in the
House of Lords, and in reply to the deputation of the Imperial
Federation League at the Foreign Office, has properly insisted
on the chief practical obstacle to a policy of frequent
conferences. Attendance at conferences involves grave
inconvenience to Colonial statesmen. ... In appealing to the
Imperial Federation League for some practical suggestions as
to the means by which the several parts of the British Empire
may be more closely knit together, Lord Salisbury threw out
some pregnant hints. To make a united empire both a Zollverein
and a Kriegsverein must be formed. In the existing state of
feeling in the Mother-country a Zollverein would be a serious
difficulty. The reasons have been already stated. A
Kriegsverein was, perhaps, more practicable, and certainly
more, urgent. The space which separates the Colonies from
possible enemies was becoming every year less and less a
protection. We may take concerted action for defence without
the necessity for constitutional changes which it would be
difficult to carry out."
Lord Brassey,
Imperial Federation: An English View
(Nineteenth Century, September., 1891).
"The late Mr. Forster launched under the high-sounding title
of the 'Imperial Federation League,' a scheme by which its
authors proposed to solve all the problems attending the
administration of our colonial empire. From first to last the
authors of this scheme have never condescended on particulars.
'Imperial federation,' we were always told, was the only
specific against the disintegration of the Empire, but as to
what this specific really was, no information was vouchsafed.
... It is very natural that the citizens of a vast but
fragmentary empire, whose territorial atoms (instead of
forming, like those of the United States, a 'ring-fence'
domain) are scattered over the surface of the globe, should
cast about for some artificial links to bind together the
colonies we have planted, and 'the thousand tribes nourished
on strange religions and lawless slaveries' which we have
gathered under our rule.
{1114}
This anxiety has been naturally augmented by a chronic
agitation for the abandonment of all colonies as expensive and
useless. For though there may be little to boast of in the
fact that Great Britain has in the course of less than three
centuries contrived by war, diplomacy, and adventure, to annex
about a fifth of the globe, it can hardly be expected that she
should relinquish without an effort even the nominal sway she
still holds over her colonial empire. Hence it comes to pass
that any scheme which seems to supply the needed links is
caught up by those who, possessing slight acquaintance with
the past history or the present aspirations of our colonists,
are simply looking out for some new contrivance by which they
may hope that an enduring bond of union may be provided.
'Imperial federation' is the last new 'notion' which has
cropped up in pursuance of this object. ... Some clue ... to
its objects and aims may be gained by a reference to the
earliest exposition by Mr. Forster of his motives contained in
his answer five years ago to the question, 'Why was the League
formed at all?' 'For this reason,' says Mr. Forster, 'because
in giving self-government to our colonies we have introduced a
principle which must eventually shake off from Great Britain,
Greater Britain, and divide it into separate states, which
must, in short, dissolve the union unless counteracting
measures be taken to preserve it.' Believing, as we do, that
it has only been by conceding to our larger groups of colonies
absolute powers of self-government that we have retained them
at all, and that the secret of our protracted empire lies in
the fact of this abandonment of central arbitrary power, the
retention of which has caused the collapse of all the European
empires which preceded us in the path of colonisation, we are
bound to enter our emphatic protest against an assumption so
utterly erroneous as that propounded by Mr. Forster. So far
from believing that the permanent union of the British Empire
is to be secured by 'measures which may counteract the
workings of colonial self-government,' we are convinced that
the only safety for our Empire lies in the unfettered action
of that self-government which we have ourselves granted to our
colonies. It would almost seem that for Lord Rosebery and his
fellow workers the history of the colonial empires of
Portugal, Spain, Holland, and France had been written in vain.
For if we ask why these colonial empires have dwindled and
decayed, the answer is simply because that self-government
which is the life of British colonies was never granted to
their dependencies. There was a time when one hundred and
fifty sovereign princes paid tribute to the treasury of
Lisbon. For two hundred years, more than half the South
American continent was an appanage of Spain. Ceylon, the Cape,
Guiana, and a vast cluster of trade factories in the East were
at the close of the seventeenth century colonies of Holland;
while half North America, comprising the vast and fertile
valleys of the St. Lawrence, the Mississippi, and the Ohio,
obeyed, a little more than a century ago, the sceptre of
France. Neither Portugal, nor Spain, nor Holland, nor France,
has lacked able rulers or statesmen, but the colonial empire
of all these states has crumbled and decayed. The exceptional
position of Great Britain in this respect can only be ascribed
to the relinquishment of all the advantages, political and
commercial, ordinarily presumed to result to dominant states
from the possession of dependencies. ... The romantic dreams
of the Imperial Federation League were in fact dissipated
beforehand by the irrevocable grant of independent
legislatures to all our most important colonies, and Lord
Rosebery may rest assured that, charm he never so wisely, they
will not listen to his blandishments at the cost of one iota
of the political privileges already conferred on them."
Imperial Federation
(Edinburgh Review, July, 1889).
"'Britannic Confederation' is defined to be an union of 'the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, British North
America, 'British South Africa, and Australasia.' The West
Indies and one or two other British Dependencies seem here to
be shut out; but, at any rate, with this definition we at
least know where we are. The terms of the union we are not
told; but, as the word 'confederation' is used, I conceive
that they are meant to be strictly federal. That is to say,
first of all, the Parliament of the United Kingdom will give
up its right to legislate for British North America, British
South Africa, and Australasia. Then the United Kingdom,
British North America, British South Africa and Australasia
will enter into a federal relation with one another. They may
enter either as single members (States or Cantons) 'or as
groups of members. That is, Great Britain and Ireland might
enter as a single State of the Confederation, or England,
Scotland, Ireland, Wales--or possibly smaller divisions
again--might enter as separate States. Or Great Britain,
Australia, Canada, &c., might enter as themselves Leagues,
members of a greater League, as in the old state of things in
Graubünden. I am not arguing for or against any of these
arrangements. I am only stating them as possible. But whatever
the units are to be--Great Britain and Australia, England and
Victoria, or anything larger or smaller--if the confederation
is to be a real one, each State must keep some powers to
itself, and must yield some powers to a central body. That
Central body, in which all the States must be represented in
some way or other, will naturally deal with all international
matters, all matters that concern the Britannic Confederation
as a whole. The legislatures of Great Britain and Australia,
England and Victoria, or whatever the units fixed on may be,
will deal only with the internal affairs of those several
cantons. Now such a scheme as this is theoretically possible.
That is, it involves no contradiction in terms, as the talk
about Imperial Federation does. It is purely federal; there is
nothing 'imperial' about it. It is simply applying to certain
political communities a process which has been actually gone
through by certain other political communities. It is
proposing to reconstruct a certain political constitution
after the model of certain other political constitutions which
are in actual working. It is therefore something better than
mere talk and theory. But, because it is theoretically
possible, it does not follow that it is practically possible,
that is, that it is possible in this particular case. ... Of
the federations existing at this time the two chief are
Switzerland and the United States of America. They differ in
this point, that one is very large and the other very small;
they agree in this, that the territory of both is continuous.
But the proposed Britannic Confederation will be scattered,
scattered over every part of the world.
{1115}
I know of no example in any age of a scattered confederation,
a scattered Bundesstaat. The Hanse Towns were not a
Bundesstaat; they were hardly a Staatenbund. Of the probable
working of such a body as that which is now proposed the
experience of history can teach us nothing; we can only guess
what may be likely. The Britannic Confederation will have its
federal congress sitting somewhere, perhaps at Westminster,
perhaps at Melbourne, perhaps at some Washington called
specially into being at some point more central than either.
... For a while their representatives will think it grand to
sit at Westminster; presently, as the spirit of equality
grows, they are not unlikely to ask for some more central
place; they may even refuse to stir out of their own
territory. That is to say, they will find that the sentiment
of national unity, which they undoubtedly have in no small
measure, needs some physical and some political basis to stand
on. It is hard to believe 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 for ever by a
sentiment only. And we must further remember that that
sentiment is a sentiment for the mother-country, and not for
one another. ... Canada and Australia 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 tend
to the advance of a common national unity among them. We may
doubt whether it will not be likely to bring out some hidden
tendencies to disunion among them. ... In the scattered
confederation all questions and parties are likely to be
local. It is hard to see what will be the materials for the
formation of great national parties among such scattered
elements."
E. A. Freeman,
The Physical and Political Bases of National Unity
(Britannic Confederation, edited by A. S. White).
"I have the greatest respect for the aspirations of the
Imperial Federationists, and myself most earnestly desire the
moral unity of our race and its partnership in achievement and
grandeur. But an attempt at formal Federation, such as is now
proposed, would in the first place exclude the people of the
United States, who form the largest portion of the
English-speaking race, and in the second place it would split
us all to pieces. It would, I am persuaded, call into play
centrifugal forces against which the centripetal forces could
not contend for an hour. What interests of the class with
which a Federal Parliament would deal have Australia and
Canada in common? What enemy has either of them whom the other
would be inclined to fight? Australia, it seems, looks forward
to a struggle with the Chinese for ascendency in that quarter
of the globe. Canada cares no more about a struggle between
the Australians and the Chinese at the other extremity of the
globe than the Australians would care about a dispute between
Canada and her neighbours in the United States respecting
Canadian boundaries or the Fisheries Question. The
circumstances of the two groups of colonies, to which their
policy must conform, are totally different. Australia lies in
an ocean by herself: Canada is territorially interlocked and
commercially bound up, as well as socially almost fused, with
the great mass of English-speaking population which occupies
the larger portion of her continent. Australia again is
entirely British. Canada has in her midst a great block of
French population, constituting a distinct nationality, which
instead of being absorbed is daily growing in intensity; and
she would practically be unable to take part in any enterprise
or support any policy, especially any policy entailing an
increase of taxation, to which the French Canadians were
opposed. Of getting Canada to contribute out of her own
resources to wars or to the maintenance of armaments, for the
objects of British diplomacy in Europe or in the East, no one
who knows the Canadians can imagine that there would be the
slightest hope. The very suggestion, at the time of the Soudan
Expedition, called forth emphatic protests on all sides. The
only results of an experiment in formal Federation, I repeat,
would be repudiation of Federal demands, estrangement and
dissolution."
Goldwin Smith,
Straining the Silken Thread
(Macmillan's Magazine. August, 1888).
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT:
European Federation.
"While it is obvious that Imperial Federation of the British
Empire would cover many of the defects in our relationship
with the colonies, it is equally apparent that it is open to
the fatal objection of merely making us a more formidable
factor in the field of international anarchy. Suppose the
colonies undertook to share equitably the great cost of
imperial defence in the present state of things throughout
Europe--and that is a very large assumption--England would be
entirely dependent, in case of war, for the supply of food on
the fleet, any accident to which would place us at the enemy's
mercy. Even without actual hostilities, however, our
additional strength would cause another increase of foreign
armaments to meet the case of war with us. This process has
taken place invariably on the increase of armaments of any
European state, and may be taken to be as certain as that the
sun will rise to-morrow. But all the benefits accruing from
Imperial Federation may be secured by European Federation,
plus a reduction of military liability, which Imperial
Federation would not only not reduce, but increase. There is
nothing to prevent the self-governing colonies from joining in
a European Federation, and thus enlarging the basis of that
institution enormously, and cutting off in a corresponding
degree the chance of an outbreak of violence in another
direction, which could not fail to have serious consequences
to the colonies at any rate."
C. D. Farquharson,
Federation, the Polity of the Future
(Westminster Review, December, 1891),
pages 602-603.
----------FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: End----------
FEDERALIST, The.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1787-1789.
FEDERALISTS; The party of the.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1789-1792;
also 1812; and 1814 (DECEMBER): THE HARTFORD CONVENTION.
FEDS.--CONFEDS.
See BOYS IN BLUE.
FEE.
See FEUDALISM.
FEHDERECHT.
The right of private warfare, or diffidation,
exercised in mediæval Germany.
See LANDDFRIEDE.
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FEHRBELLIN, Battle of (1675).
See BRANDENBURG: A. D. 1640-1688;
and SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1644-1697.
FEIS OF TARA.
See TARA.
FELICIAN HERESY.
See ADOPTIANISM.
FELIX V., Pope, A. D. 1439-1449
Elected by the Council of Basle.
FENIAN MOVEMENT, The.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1858-1867;
and CANADA: A. D. 1866-1871.
FENIAN: Origin of the Name.
An Irish poem of the ninth century called the Duan Eireannach,
or Poem of Ireland, preserves a mythical story of the origin
of the Irish people, according to which they sprang from one
Fenius Farsaidh who came out of Scythia. Nel, or Niul, the son
of Fenius, travelled into Egypt and married Scota, a daughter
of Forann (Pharaoh). "Niul had a son named Gaedhuil Glas, or
Green Gael; and we are told that it is from him the Irish are
called Gaedhil (Gael) or Gadelians, while from his mother is
derived the name of Scoti, or Scots, and from Fenius that of
Feni or Fenians."
M. Haverty,
History of Ireland,
page 10.
From this legend was derived the name of the Fenian
Brotherhood, organized in Ireland and America for the
liberation of the former from British rule, and which played a
disturbing but unsuccessful part in Irish affairs from about
1865 to 1871.
FEODORE.
See THEODORE.
FEODUM.
See FEUDALISM.
FEOF.
See FEUDALISM.
FEORM FULTUM.
See FERM.
FERDINAND,
King of Portugal, A. D. 1367-1383.
Ferdinand 1., Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary and
Bohemia, 1835-1848.
Ferdinand I.,
Germanic Emperor, 1558-1564;
Archduke of Austria,
and King of Hungary and Bohemia, 1526-1564;
King of the Romans, 1531-1558.
Ferdinand I., King of Aragon and Sicily, 1412-1416.
Ferdinand I.,
King of Castile, 1035-1065;
King of Leon, 1037-1065.
Ferdinand I., King of Naples, 1458-1494.
Ferdinand II., Germanic Emperor and King of Bohemia and
Hungary, 1619-1637.
Ferdinand II.,
King of Aragon, 1479-1516;
V. of Castile (King-Consort of Isabella of Castile and
Regent), 1474-1516;
II. of Sicily, 1479-1516; and III. of Naples, 1503-1516.
Ferdinand II., King of Leon, 1157-1188.
Ferdinand II., King of Naples, 1495-1496.
Ferdinand II., called Bomba,
King of the Two Sicilies, 1830-1859.
Ferdinand III., Germanic Emperor, and King of Hungary and
Bohemia, 1637-1657.
Ferdinand III.,
King of Castile, 1217-1230;
King of Leon and Castile, united, 1230-1252.
Ferdinand IV., King of Leon and Castile, 1295-1312.
Ferdinand IV.,
King of Naples,
and I. of the Two Sicilies, 1759-1806;
and 1815-1825.
Ferdinand VI., King of Spain, 1746-1759.
Ferdinand VII., King of Spain, 1808; and 1814-1833.
FERIÆ.
See LUDI.
FERM.--FIRMA.--FARM.
"A sort of composition for all the profits arising to the king
[in England, Norman period] from his ancient claims on the
land and from the judicial proceedings of the shire-moot; the
rent of detached pieces of demesne land, the remnants of the
ancient folk-land; the payments due from corporate bodies and
individuals for the primitive gifts, the offerings made in
kind, or the hospitality--the feorm-fultum--which the kings
had a right to exact from their subjects, and which were
before the time of Domesday generally commuted for money; the
fines, or a portion of the fines, paid in the ordinary process
of the county courts, and other small miscellaneous incidents.
These had been, soon after the composition of Domesday,
estimated at a fixed sum, which was regarded as a sort of rent
or composition at which the county was let to the sheriff and
recorded in the 'Rotulus Exactorious'; for this, under the
name of ferm, he answered annually; if his receipts were in
excess, he retained the balance as his lawful profit, the
wages of his service; if the proceeds fell below the ferm, he
had to pay the difference from his own purse. ... The farm,
ferm, or firma, the rent or composition for the ancient
feorm-fultum, or provision payable in kind to the Anglo-Saxon
kings. The history of the word in its French form would be
interesting. The use of the word for a pecuniary payment is
traced long before the Norman Conquest."
W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 11, section 126, and note.
FERNANDO.
See FERDINAND.
FEROZESHUR, Battle of (1845)
See INDIA: A. D. 1845-1849.
FERRARA: The House of Este.
See ESTE.
FERRARA: A. D. 1275.
Sovereignty of the Pope confirmed by Rodolph of Hapsburg.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1273-1308.
FERRARA: A. D. 1597.
Annexation to the states of the Church.
End of the house of Este.
Decay of the city and duchy.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1597.
FERRARA: A. D. 1797.
Joined to the Cispadine Republic.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1796-1797 (OCTOBER-APRIL).
----------FERRARA: End----------
FERRY BRIDGE, Battle of (1461).
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1455-1471,
FETIALES.--FECIALES.
"The duties of the feciales, or fetiales [among the Romans].
extended over every branch of international law. They gave
advice on all matters of peace or war, and the conclusion of
treaties and alliances. ... They fulfilled the same functions
as heralds, and, as such, were frequently entrusted with
important communications. They were also sent on regular
embassies. To them was entrusted the reception and
entertainment of foreign envoys. They were required to decide
on the justice of a war about to commence, and to proclaim and
consecrate it according to certain established formalities.
... The College of Feciales consisted of nearly twenty
members, with a president, who was called Pater Patratus,
because it was necessary that he should have both father and
children living, that he might be supposed to take greater
interest in the welfare of the State, and look backwards as
well as forwards. ... The name of Feciales ... still existed
under the emperors, as well as that of Pater Patratus, though
only as a title of honour, while the institution itself was
for ever annihilated; and, after the reign of Tiberius, we
cannot find any trace of it."
E. C. G. Murray,
Embassies and Foreign Courts,
pages 8-10.
See, also, AUGURS.
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FEUDAL TENURES.
"After the feudal system of tenure had been fully established,
all lands were held subject to certain additional obligations,
which were due either to the King (not as sovereign, but as
feudal lord) from the original grantees, called
tenants-in-chief (tenentes in capite), or to the
tenants-in-chief themselves from their under tenants. Of these
obligations the most honourable was that of knight-service.
This was the tenure by which the King granted out fiefs to his
followers, and by which they in turn provided for their own
military retainers. The lands of the bishops and dignified
ecclesiastics, and of most of the religious foundations, were
also held by this tenure. A few exceptions only were made in
favour of lands which had been immemorially held in
frankalmoign, or free-alms. On the grant of a fief, the tenant
was publicly invested with the land by a symbolical or actual
delivery, termed livery of seisin. He then did homage, so
called from the words used in the ceremony: 'Je deveigne votre
homme' ['I become your man']. ... In the case of a sub-tenant
(vavassor), his oath of fealty was guarded by a reservation of
the faith due to his sovereign lord the King. For every
portion of land of the annual value of £20, which constituted
a knight's fee [in England], the tenant was bound, whenever
required, to render the services of a knight properly armed
and accoutred, to serve in the field forty days at his own
expense. ... Tenure by knight-service was also subject to
several other incidents of a burdensome character. ... There
was a species of tenancy in chief by Grand Serjeanty, ...
whereby the tenant was bound, instead of serving the King
generally in his wars, to do some special service in his own
proper person, as to carry the King's banner or lance, or to
be his champion, butler, or other officer at his coronation.
... Grants of land were also made by the King to his inferior
followers and personal attendants, to be held by meaner
services. ... Hence, probably, arose tenure by Petit
Serjeanty, though later on we find that term restricted to
tenure 'in capite' by the service of rendering yearly some
implement of war to the King. ... Tenure in Free Socage (which
still subsists under the modern denomination of Freehold, and
may be regarded as the representative of the primitive alodial
ownership) denotes, in its most general and extensive
signification, a tenure by any certain and determinate
service, as to pay a fixed money rent, or to plough the lord's
land for a fixed number of days in the year. ... Tenure in
Burgage was a kind of town socage. It applied to tenements in
any ancient borough, held by the burgesses, of the King or
other lord, by fixed rents or services. ... This tenure, which
still subsists, is subject to a variety of local customs, the
most remarkable of which is that of borough-English, by which
the burgage tenement descends to the youngest instead of to
the eldest son. Gavelkind is almost confined to the county of
Kent. ... The lands are held by suit of court and fealty, a
service in its nature certain. The tenant in Gavelkind
retained many of the properties of alodial ownership: his
lands were devisable by will; in case of intestacy they
descended to all his sons equally; they were not liable to
escheat for felony ... and they could be aliened by the tenant
at the age of fifteen. Below Free Socage was the tenure in
Villeinage, by which the agricultural labourers, both free and
servile, held the land which was to them in lieu of money
wages."
T. P. Taswell-Langmead,
English Constitutional History,
pages 58-65.
FEUDALISM.
"Feudalism, the comprehensive idea which includes the whole
governmental policy of the French kingdom, was of distinctly
Frank growth. The principle which underlies it may be
universal; but the historic development of it with which the
constitutional history of Europe is concerned may be traced
step by step under Frank influence, from its first appearance
on the conquered soil of Roman Gaul to its full development in
the jurisprudence of the Middle Ages. In the form which it has
reached at the Norman Conquest, it may be described as a
complete organisation of society through the medium of land
tenure, in which from the king down to the lowest landowner
all are bound together by obligation of service and defence:
the lord to protect his vassal, the vassal to do service to
his lord; the defence and service being based on and regulated
by the nature and extent of the land held by the one of the
other. In those states which have reached the territorial
stage of development, the rights of defence and service are
supplemented by the right of jurisdiction. The lord judges as
well as defends his vassal; the vassal does suit as well as
service to his lord. In states in which feudal government has
reached its utmost growth, the political, financial, judicial,
every branch of public administration, is regulated by the
same conditions. The central authority is a mere shadow of a
name. This institution had grown up from two great
sources--the beneficium, and the practice of
commendation,--and had been specially fostered on Gallic soil
by the existence of a subject population which admitted of any
amount of extension in the methods of dependence. The
beneficiary system originated partly in gifts of land made by
the kings out of their own estates to their kinsmen and
servants, with a special undertaking to be faithful; partly in
the surrender by landowners of their estates to churches or
powerful men, to be received back again and held by them as
tenants for rent or service. By the latter arrangement the
weaker man obtained the protection of the stronger, and he who
felt himself insecure placed his title under the defence of
the church. By the practice of commendation, on the other
hand, the inferior put himself under the personal care of a
lord, but without altering his title or divesting himself of
his right to his estate; he became a vassal and did homage.
... The union of the beneficiary tie with that of commendation
completed the idea of feudal obligation; the two-fold hold on
the land, that of the lord and that of the vassal, was
supplemented by the two-fold engagement, that of the lord to
defend, and that of the vassal to be faithful. A third
ingredient was supplied by the grants of immunity by which in
the Frank empire, as in England, the possession of land was
united with the right of judicature: the dwellers on a feudal
property were placed under the tribunal of the lord, and the
rights which had belonged to the nation or to its chosen head
were devolved upon the receiver of a fief. The rapid spread of
the system thus originated, and the assimilation of all other
tenures to it, may be regarded as the work of the tenth
century; but as early as A. D. 877 Charles the Bald recognised
the hereditary character of all benefices; and from that year
the growth of strictly feudal jurisprudence may be held to
date. The system testifies to the country and causes of its
birth.
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The beneficium is partly of Roman, partly of German origin.
... Commendation on the other hand may have had a Gallic or
Celtic origin, and an analogy only with the Roman clientship.
... The word feudum, fief, or fee, is derived from the German
word for cattle (Gothic 'faihu'; Old High German 'fihu'; Old
Saxon 'fehu'; Anglo-Saxon 'feoh'); the secondary meaning being
goods, especially money: hence property in general. The letter
d is perhaps a mere insertion for sound's sake; but it
has been interpreted as part of a second root, od, also
meaning property, in which case the first syllable has a third
meaning, that of fee or reward, and the whole word means
property given by way of reward for service. But this is
improbable. ... The word feodum is not found earlier than the
close of the ninth century."
W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 9, section 93, and notes (volume 1).
"The regular machinery and systematic establishment of feuds,
in fact, may be considered as almost confined to the dominions
of Charlemagne, and to those countries which afterwards
derived it from thence. In England it can hardly be thought to
have existed in a complete state, before the Conquest.
Scotland, it is supposed, borrowed it soon after from her
neighbour. The Lombards of Benevento had introduced feudal
customs into the Neapolitan provinces, which the Norman
conquerors afterwards perfected. Feudal tenures were so
general in the kingdom of Aragon, that I reckon it among the
monarchies which were founded upon that basis. Charlemagne's
empire, it must be remembered, extended as far as the Ebro.
But in Castile and Portugal they were very rare, and certainly
could produce no political effect. Benefices for life were
sometimes granted in the kingdoms of Denmark and Bohemia.
Neither of these, however, nor Sweden, nor Hungary, come under
the description of countries influenced by the feudal system."
H. Hallam,
The Middle Ages,
chapter 2.
"Hardly any point in the whole history of European
institutions has been the subject of so violent controversy as
this of the origin of Feudalism. It was formerly supposed that
Feudalism was only a somewhat more developed form of the
ancient Germanic 'following' transplanted to Roman soil, but a
more critical examination of the documents of the early period
soon showed that there was more to it than this. It became
evident that Feudalism was not so simple as had at first
appeared. ... When, however, scholars had come to see this,
they then found themselves at variance upon the details of the
process by which the popular monarchical arrangements of the
early Franks were converted into the aristocratic forms of the
later Feudalism. While they agreed upon the essential fact
that the Germans, at the time of their emergence from their
original seats and their occupation of the Roman lands, were
not mere wandering groups of freebooters, as the earlier
school had represented them, but well-organized nations, with
a very distinct sense of political organization, they found
themselves hopelessly divided on the question how this
national life had, in the course of time, come to assume forms
so very different from those of the primitive German. The
first person to represent what we may call the modern view of
the feudal system was Georg Waitz, in the first edition of his
History of the German Constitution, in the years 1844-47.
Waitz presented the thing as a gradual growth during several
centuries, the various elements of which it was composed
growing up side by side without definite chronological
sequence. This view was met by Paul Roth in his History of the
Institution of the Benefice, in the year 1850. He maintained that
royal benefices were unknown to the Merovingian Franks, and
that they were an innovation of the earliest Carolingians.
They were, so he believed, made possible by a grand
confiscation of the lands of the Church, not by Charles
Martel, as the earlier writers had believed, but by his sons,
Pippin and Karlmann. The first book of Roth was followed in
the year 1863 by another on Feudalism and the Relation of the
Subject to the State, (Feudalität und Unterthanenverband), in
which he attempted to show that the direct subjection of the
individual to the government was not a strange idea to the
early German, but that it pervaded all forms of Germanic life
down to the Carolingian times, and that therefore the feudal
relation was a something entirely new, a break in the practice
of the Germans. In the years 1880-1885 appeared a new edition
of Waitz's History of the German Constitution, in which, after
acknowledging the great services rendered by Roth to the cause of
learning, he declares himself unable to give up his former
point of view, and brings new evidence in support of it. Thus
for more than thirty years this question has been before the
world of scholars, and may be regarded as being quite as far
from a settlement as ever."
E. Emerton,
An Introduction to the Study of the Middle Ages,
page 236 (foot-note).
ALSO IN:
F. P. Guizot,
History of Civilization:
Second Course, lecture 2.
See, also, FRANCE: A. D. 987-1327.