Broadly speaking, it may be submitted with regard to our self-governing colonies that we are bound in honour to keep them as long as they will stay, and in conscience not to detain them when they are able and willing to go. Having acquired them, and given the most practical guarantees to protect them, we ought to hold to our implied bargain at any cost, and to defend them with as much energy as our native soil. But, just as a parent’s duty to a child is to do everything to protect and assist him in his period of growth, so is it equally his duty, when the training-time has been accomplished, to set no hindrance in the path of his acquiring an independent position. And the relation of parent to child has a true likeness to that of England to her self-governing colonies.
If it be asked whether this question of what should be done in case of a proposed separation ought to be raised at the present moment, the reply is that events are forcing the matter forward, and that it is well to consider in a time of comparative quiet a problem which may convulse the nation from end to end if urged upon us in a storm.
For rumblings of the storm have already been heard from the three great self-governing portions of our colonial empire. Sir Henry Parkes, the Premier of New South Wales, in an article published no long time since, and in the very act of proposing a scheme by which he imagined the mother country and the colonies might be knit more closely together, uttered a warning that separation might within the next generation be pushed to the front, for “there are persons in Australia, and in most of the Australian Legislatures, who avowedly or tacitly favour the idea.” And he added: “In regard to the large mass of the English people in Australia, there can be no doubt of their genuine loyalty to the present State, and their affectionate admiration for the present illustrious occupant of the throne. But this loyalty is nourished at a great distance, and by tens of thousands, daily increasing, who have never known any land but the one dear land where they dwell. It is the growth of a semitropical soil, alike tender and luxuriant, and a slight thing may bruise, even snap asunder, its young tendrils.”
When we turn from Australia to Canada, the same warning is in the air. In the autumn of 1887, the remarks of Mr. Chamberlain at Belfast, repudiating the principle of commercial union between Canada and the United States, evoked strong protests from some leading newspapers in the Dominion against the idea of England interfering if such a union were agreed upon. The Toronto Mail put the matter in a nutshell when it observed—“Let there be no misunderstanding on this point. Canadians have not ceased to love and venerate England, but have simply reached that stage of development when their choice of what is best for themselves, be it what it may, must prevail over all other considerations.” Should it be said that this is only an utterance of our old friend “the irresponsible journalist,” it may be added that the practice of Canadian statesmen appears to be in accordance with the principles of Canadian writers. This was certainly the opinion of our own Standard, which, in an article in 1887 upon the increases in the Canadian tariff directed against imported iron and steel, wrote—“The obvious truth of the matter is that Canada has given no thought to our interests at all, but only to her own.... Of course these Canadians are a most ‘loyal’ people for all that, and if they can get us to lend them our money they will flatter us and heap sweet-sounding phrases upon us, till the most voracious appetite for such is cloyed to sickness. It is only when we expect them to pay us our money back, or at least to put up no barriers against our trade with them, that we find out how hollow these phrases are. No federation of the empire can take place under any guise while its leading colonies, which love us so exceedingly, strive their utmost to injure our trade.... Why should we waste a drop of our blood or spend a shilling of our means to shelter countries whose selfishness is so great that they never give a thought to any interest of ours? That is the question the Protectionist colonies are forcing Englishmen to ask themselves, and it is as well that it should be bluntly put to them now.”
Cape Colony is as ready as Australia or Canada to resent the least interference from the mother country. Sir Gordon Sprigg, its Premier, referring at a public meeting late in 1887 to a Bill which the Imperial Ministry had been asked to disallow, observed that, if it should be disallowed, it was not a question of this particular Bill, but whether the colony was to have a free government, or whether necessary legislation in South Africa was to be checked by irresponsible persons at home, and they were to go back to the old Constitution, and be governed by a people six thousand miles away, knowing little of the requirements of the inhabitants of the Cape.
Therefore, we have to face a growing opinion among the self-governing colonies that they will allow England no controlling voice in their internal affairs; and the question will present itself to many Englishmen whether it is right that we should be saddled with the responsibility of defending colonies which resent any interference, and use their tariffs to lessen our trade. As long as they require help we are bound in honour to give it; but when they demand, as at some time they will demand, separation, the conviction they are now impressing upon us that they can do without England, will materially strengthen the desire to say to them, “Go in peace.”
Even if such a consideration did not exist, one might hope that England would never repeat the enterprise once attempted against what are now the United States, and try to crush a growing nation of our own children when wishing to take its own place in the economy of the world. Some will answer that all danger of such a contingency would be avoided by the adoption of a sound plan of imperial federation; but where is that sound plan to be looked for? Even the most ardent advocates of the principle do not venture upon a plan. They are content to talk of sympathy rather than develop a system; but sympathy does not go far when practical considerations are concerned. It may be argued that sympathy went a long way when a detachment from New South Wales assisted our military operations in the Soudan; but the experiment was a dangerous one which ought not to be often repeated. Franklin in his autobiography tells us that it was the defeat of Braddock’s force which first taught the American colonists that it was possible to hope for independence; and the lesson needs remembering.
What those who advocate imperial federation have to prove is that it is practicable to persuade each portion of this vast empire to pay and to fight for every other portion. As long as England does both the paying and the fighting, things may go smoothly. But if England went to war with France over the New Hebrides, in order to protect the interests of Australia, what would Newfoundland say on being asked to share the bill? Similarly, if England engaged France over the bait question, so as to preserve the fishing trade of Newfoundland, how would Australia like to be taxed for the fray? And if we fought the United States on the fisheries dispute in order to please Canada, does any one imagine that Australia or Cape Colony would agree to additional imposts for the lessening of our National Debt? It is when considerations like these are discussed that imperial federation appears a pleasing dream rather than a probable reality.
And, therefore, when we discuss our future dealings with the colonies, we ought to know how far we intend to go. As long as they remain with us, we ought to do our utmost to preserve the most friendly relations; but, having given them self-government, we ought to impress upon them the necessity for self-preservation. And if, when they can not only rule but protect themselves, they should ask to be freed from even the nominal allegiance to the English Crown which is all they now give, they should be suffered to go, in the hope and belief that they would prosper.