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.
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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.]