If the colonies are able to expend their borrowings on reproductive works alone, this advantage is not entirely due to their own superior prudence, but in part at least to the circumstance that they have been protected by a great Imperial power not afraid to go into debt for national ends. Gibraltar and Malta, Aden, Singapore, and Hong Kong, the Cape and St. Helena, stations in every corner of the world for the protection of the commerce of the colonies as much as that of the United Kingdom, are the best answers to those who sneer at the National Debt of Great Britain.
The United States incurred a war debt of more than 2000,000,000 dollars, not indeed in carrying out a foreign policy, right or wrong, but in remedying mistakes of internal policy. The war brought no vast addition of territory; it simply saved the state from disruption. No one doubts that the expenditure has been more than repaid by the national unity and greatness which it secured. But the very people who were crushed by that vast outlay have been obliged, since they remain within the nation, to contribute to the payment of the debt incurred.
They are obliged to contribute their share of the vast pension roll, amounting to much more than 100,000,000 dollars per annum, paid to the soldiers of the Union {99} who crushed them. Compared with this, the magnanimity of the mother-land in handing over to her younger communities, absolutely free from incumbrance either of mortgage, of military responsibility, or of commercial restraint, the major part of those vast assets which she had to show for her national debt, seems to me amazing. A colonist, reproaching England with her foreign policy and the debt which it led to, cuts a sorry figure in the face of these facts. And if we put the £30,000,000 added to the debt of England in order to extinguish slavery beside the price paid by the United States for the same national purification, we shall discover reasons for thinking that there may be national mistakes worse than those to be discovered in the foreign policy of Britain.
Sir Charles Dilke says[6]: 'It is a remarkable instance of past Imperial carelessness that the very principles upon which the burden of defence should be divided between ourselves and colonies, and the proportions in which it should be borne, have never been settled.'
And again[7]: 'It is not the United Kingdom only but the whole British Empire which needs consistent and united organization for defence. The colonies should be represented on our great General Staff, and the principle of self-preservation, applied to the Empire, should be disentangled from the petty {100} political questions by which the relations between the mother-country and her children are often hampered and sometimes embittered. … Unfortunately, considerations of Imperial defence, which should be regarded from the point of view of common self-interest, are apt to become mixed up with the individual and fleeting interests of various portions of the Empire. If, as I hope, we are to continue to stand together as a confederacy holding the future of the greater portion of the world in its hands, the inhabitants of the home islands and of the colonies must come to an understanding for mutual support during the crisis of civilization in which we may find ourselves at any moment.'
I have often had occasion to quote Sir Charles Dilke's opinions on questions which have come within the range of this discussion. The luminous and exhaustive statement of the condition and resources of the Empire contained in the two volumes of the 'Problems of Greater Britain,' though somewhat weighted by detail, and in my opinion weakened by an imperfect balancing of the primary and secondary forces at work in the colonies, is still by far the most valuable contribution yet made to the study of our national position. The line of argument by which the author proves the necessity for closer defensive organization of the different parts of the Empire seems to me overwhelming in its conclusiveness. His demand that the colonies should be represented on the General Staff which is to constitute the {101} brain of the nation in military questions, his impressive warnings that the mother-land and colonies must stand side by side in protecting the commerce and civilization which both have borne a part in building up, make it very difficult to understand the hesitating and irresolute attitude which he takes in his chapter (vol. ii. part vii.) on 'Future Relations' to the question of Federation, or any defined system of political union. Military combination, even for defensive purposes alone, must certainly mean a common foreign policy and the joint expenditure which is necessary to make it effective; a common foreign policy and expenditure imply some means of giving adequate expression to the will of all the communities concerned; and to most minds that, I think, will point directly and inevitably to some form of common representation. Military authorities may plan and advise, but under any British system of government political authorities who derive their mandate directly from the citizens can alone make the plan effective. Mere alliance could never accomplish all that the author of the 'Problems of Greater Britain' believes essential to the safety of the Empire. Alliance is temporary and easily revocable, and therefore by no means a settlement of permanent national questions. The moment that an attempt is made to remedy the carelessness complained of, to settle the principles upon which the burden of defence is to be divided between the mother-land and colonies, 'to come to an understanding for mutual support,' it will be found {102} that immediately behind the military problem is the political problem[8].
[1] Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1891.
[2] While these pages are going through the press there comes, as if to qualify what is here said, the news that a young Canadian, Captain William H. Robinson, of the Royal Engineers, has met a soldier's death while leading, with conspicuous courage, an attack on Tambi in Sierra Leone. Trained in Canadian schools, and graduated with the highest honours from the Canadian Military College at Kingston, he had steadily pushed his way forward in the Imperial service and had for some time been in charge of the important fortifications in course of construction at Sierra Leone. In the ardent pursuit of his profession he had specially volunteered for the service on which he was engaged when he met his end. As his teacher I had occasion to watch over the early development of his very exceptional powers. Britain has, first and last, sacrificed many precious lives on Canadian soil, but in Captain Robinson Canada has begun to repay the debt to the mother-land with one of the most promising of the sons she has yet produced.
[3] 'I should like to ask the friends of federation whether the colonies of this country—Canada, and the great colonies which cluster in the South Pacific and in Australia—whether these colonies would be willing to bind themselves to the stupid and regrettable foreign policy of the Government of this country? Will they take the responsibility of entering into wars which will be 10,000 miles away, and in which they can have no possible interest or influence, and in which they could have been in no degree consulted as to the cost? My opinion is that the colonies will never stand a policy of that kind.'—John Bright at Birmingham, March 28th, 1888.
[4] A Liberal Foreign Minister has lately expressed the same thought in other words. 'Our great Empire has pulled us, so to speak, by the coat-tails out of the European system; and though with our great predominance, our great moral influence, and our great fleet, with our traditions in Europe and our aspirations to preserve the peace of Europe, we can never remove ourselves altogether from the European system, we must recognise that our foreign policy has become a colonial policy, and is in reality at this moment much more dictated from the extremities of the empire than it is from London itself.'—Lord Rosebery to the City Liberal Club, March 23rd, 1892.