Imperial Federation: The Problem of National Unity

by George R. Parkin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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