Imperial Federation: The Problem of National Unity

by George R. Parkin

Nor has the impression been different even at the Antipodes. We read in the Australian Critic: 'To say that the book before us is written by Mr. Goldwin Smith is to say that it is eminently readable, that its style is forcible and epigrammatic, and that its historical descriptions are clear and vivacious. But we have a right to expect something more in a book describing the history and institutions of a country. We have a right to expect fairness, and fairness in this book we do not get.'

This unfairness of statement, thus generally recognized, and evident to every reader from the moment that those phases of Canadian politics are dealt with which led up to and followed upon Confederation, accounts for the irritation so commonly manifested in Canadian criticism of Mr. Smith's views. It is an unfairness the more irritating because often so clever and subtle that it half eludes criticism, and because {168} it is closely interwoven with much vigorous thought on Canadian affairs. More than this, many to whom it gives the greatest annoyance hesitate to criticise it as they would, from a conviction that it is the offspring of temperament and literary habit, rather than deliberate insincerity[1].

Only a few of Mr. Smith's arguments can be dealt with here, and it is perhaps better first to refer to such as are conspicuous by their fallacy rather than those marked by unfairness.

I have pointed out the remarkable naval position which the Empire holds in the North Atlantic and the North Pacific through the possession of Canada. Let us see what Mr. Smith suggests in substitution for this advantage when, as he proposes, it has been voluntarily abandoned.

'Great Britain may need a coaling station on the Atlantic coast of North America, not for the purposes of blockade, which could no longer have place when all danger of war was at an end but for the general defence of her trade. Safe coaling stations and harbours of refuge, rather than territorial dependencies, are apparently what the great exporting country and the mistress of the carrying trade now wants. Newfoundland would be a safe and uninvidious possession, and it has coal, though bituminous and not yet worked. The Americans do not covet islands, {169} for the defence of which they would have to keep up a navy. The island itself would be the gainer: there would be some chance of the development of its resources; with nothing but the fishing the condition of its people seems to be poor. Let England then keep Newfoundland. Cape Breton is rather too close to the coast, otherwise it has coal in itself, and Louisbourg might be restored.' Clearly we have here an Englishman who has learned in his new home to talk a language unfamiliar for some centuries at least to the English ear, and one who fails to grasp the fundamental conditions of England's existence as a great nation. The greatest naval power in the world, bound to defend a world-wide commerce and above all to defend that main food route across the Atlantic which would almost certainly be the first point of attack in a Great European war, because it is the one point at which a well-nigh mortal blow could be delivered, is quietly asked to hand over to another nation her well-nigh impregnable naval station at Halifax, her command of a hundred minor ports, of the St. Lawrence, and of the splendid coal fields of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, and to relegate herself to the rock-bound, fog-encircled and sometimes ice-beset coasts of Newfoundland: to content herself with coal 'bituminous and not yet worked,' and all because the possession would be 'safe and uninvidious' and because 'the Americans do not covet islands.' In this casual redistribution of the bases of naval power it is {170} extremely characteristic and noteworthy that on the Pacific where the trade of a great ocean is to be protected, and where Russia has a great naval depot, not even an island is reserved for British people, probably because again Vancouver is 'rather too near to the coast,' to be outside the range of American covetousness, and its coal deposits too extensive for it to be considered 'uninvidious.' In reading the lines I have quoted from Mr. Smith expressing his conception of the relation of the United States to Great Britain, it is impossible not to recall the words which Shakspere puts into the mouth of Cassius;—

'Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.'

Let us not fail, however, to recognize that Mr. Smith does dimly see and admit the conditions under which Britain holds her maritime power. 'Safe coaling stations and harbours of refuge, rather than territorial dependencies are apparently what the great exporting country and the mistress of the carrying trade now wants.' The admission that British naval power rests upon safe coaling stations and harbours of refuge is fundamental. But the most superficial study of the facts or even a glance at the map makes it plain that in the Empire the command of these positions is inseparably connected with territorial possession. Britain cannot turn away her great colonies to work out an independent destiny while {171} at the same time she retains in each the best points in naval and military vantage for the creation of a series of Gibraltars such as Mr. Smith apparently has in his mind. Sir Charles Dilke has clearly pointed out that while we cannot possibly with any regard to commercial security give up the military station which we hold at the extremity of Africa, on the other hand we cannot retain it permanently without the friendship of the colonists and a maintenance of national control over the surrounding country. Still more true is this of Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Let Mr. Smith try to arrange a plan by which Australia, South Africa and Canada will accept independence with its national responsibilities and at the same time hand over to England their 'safe coaling stations and harbours of refuge' which he himself admits are the very conditions of her existence, and he will find himself face to face with a problem much more difficult than any which he propounds to Imperial Federationists when he demands of them a plan.

'Surely,' says Mr. Smith, 'the appearance of a world-wide power, grasping all the waterways and all the points of maritime vantage, instead of propagating peace, would, like an alarm gun, call the nations to battle.' To this it must straightway be answered that the case is one in which as things stand no 'grasping' is required. What British people need for their great national purposes they hold already. Their possessions have been won in a long course of national {172} development and are held in most cases under the solemn confirmation of ancient or modern treaty, or at least by the tacit consent of all the nations. No title-deeds in the world are more secure according to any recognized code of international relation. Nor is her moral right to consolidate her position less strong or more likely to be questioned. Self-defence is a primary instinct and admitted necessity of nature—recognized as such by communities as well as individuals. 'In strengthening her navy, England is pursuing a policy in the strict sense defensive. We threaten nobody. We cherish no ambitious design. It is more and more the wise policy of England to keep out of engagements in matters with which neither we of the mother-country nor our sons in the colonies have any concern. The external policy of England is directed to one object, which is to secure from attack the highway of the sea[2].' To different nations the problem of self-defence comes in different forms. France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Russia, find vast military organization the necessary condition of safe national existence. To none of them would exclusion from commerce with the rest of the world be fatal: their own resources can, in emergency, supply their wants. Resistance to a flood of hostile invasion they must be prepared to make at any moment, and to this the public thought is mainly directed. No one questions their right to equip themselves for this resistance, however much the necessity may be deplored.

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The United States, again, have been hitherto comparatively independent of external commerce. Even the carrying trade has been allowed to slip chiefly into foreign hands. Continental isolation and vast population give a sufficient range for national industry and sufficient security from hostile invasion. They enable the people to turn their attention mainly to internal development and the complex or even threatening problems involved in the assimilation and elevation of the confluent races which are taking possession of the soil. Very different is the position of British people. To them, whether at home or abroad, the steady flow of commerce is as the flow of blood through the veins; the safety of the waterways is practically a question of life or death. The very fact that Britain is not compelled to be a great military power, in the sense that European nations are military powers, adds millions to her armies of industry, increases indefinitely her producing forces and so makes more imperative the necessity for absolutely safe commercial intercourse. Britain, as the result of natural growth, now possesses the unquestionable right and the manifest opportunity, without a single stroke of aggression, to organize a naval power adequate to the protection of the chief waterways of the world, and of the enormous commerce which the industry of her people has created thereon. To any combination thus planned to guard the very life of the nation, what just or reasonable objection can be made? To any objection not just or reasonable {174} what answer must English people make? For a race of traders scattered over all quarters of the globe, peace is a supreme interest, and peace, as the world is now constituted, can only rest on organized power. For the first time in history we see a nation which unites under its flag all the comprehensiveness of a world-wide Empire and a wonderful relative compactness secured by that practical contraction of our planet which has taken place under the combined influences of steam and electricity. No other nation ever has had—it is well nigh impossible to believe that any other nation ever will have—so commanding a position for exercising the functions of what I have called an oceanic Empire, interested in developing and able to protect the commerce of the world. Such an Empire is probably the best guarantee of permanent peace the world has ever had or is likely to have this side of the millennium. Who shall question our right and duty to organize it for the great ends manifestly within our reach?