Imperial Federation: The Problem of National Unity

by George R. Parkin

{192}

CHAPTER VIII.

AUSTRALIA.

I HAVE been able to speak of Canada as a unit; as already ripe for the next stage in its political development; and of its people as practically familiar with the application of the Federal principle. The Australian colonies, which, taken together, come next to Canada in size and population, have not reached this point, but are struggling towards it. Yielding to what appears to be the general tendency of modern political development, and following the example of the United States and Canada, the Australian people are wrestling with the problems of local federation. With two great precedents to guide them the task might seem an easy one. But they meet with the old difficulty in learning the art of give and take; in overcoming the same narrow but often sincere spirit of provincialism which obstructed the adoption of a federal system in the United States and Canada, the spirit which will have to be met and overcome in working out any system of British unity. It is, however, a significant and hopeful fact that the growth of the individual colonies has inspired in all the best minds the aspiration for some larger {193} Australian patriotism than any single colony can give. The problem of federating Australia presents some features different from those met with in the United States and Canada. The whole territory of a vast continent is divided among five colonies, each of which has therefore in area the proportions of an empire or kingdom, and far exceeds in size the states of the American Union or the provinces of Canada. Each has a sea frontage of its own, and is thus independent of all others for external communication. These divisions, again, have grown up under a system of what may be called state socialism. The government of each colony takes the chief part in developing its resources, by the construction of Railways, irrigation systems and other public works, involving the creation of large public debts. Thus immense importance has been given to the functions of the individual colony, functions which the colony would be unwilling to resign, and which the Federal Government would be rash to undertake.

I mention these new features and difficulties, because in dealing with them new light will be thrown on federal problems. Each accomplished federation makes more clear the steps by which the next and higher one is to be attained, and the principles by which it is to be governed.

It will be necessary to speak of the three insular divisions of the Australasian colonies separately, but it is in regarding them as a whole that we get an adequate idea of the great place which they hold {194} and may continue to hold in the Empire. Their populations are, and will continue to be, more purely British than any countries yet occupied by Anglo-Saxon people. Ninety-five per cent. of the inhabitants, whether born in the colonies or in the mother-land, are British. There is here nothing to parallel the elimination of the Anglo-Saxon element which is taking place so rapidly in the United States. There is no French province, with its individual lines of development, as in Canada. There is no large Dutch element, as in South Africa. The coloured population which may be found necessary for the cultivation of the tropical north, will be strictly subordinated to the necessities of British development, and there will never be in Australia, as there is in the United States, an immense coloured vote to confuse national politics. As a base of maritime power the Australasian colonies manifestly furnish to the nation of which they are a part an opportunity for maintaining a supreme and indisputable control over a vast area of the southern seas. Their harbours, some of which are amongst the most capacious in the world are yet for the most part capable of secure defence. Several are already supplied with docks, spacious enough to admit for repair the largest ships afloat. The more important are already strongly fortified. Melbourne is pronounced by competent authorities to be one of the best defended ports in the Empire. In New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania and New Zealand, great neighbouring coal {195} deposits increase the value of the harbours as stations for either carrying on or protecting trade. Still more important, they have behind them great and increasing populations, capable of supplying adequate means of local defence. It is manifest that such colonies may be a great element of strength in any nation, and especially in one which chiefly depends for security on naval power. Along with South Africa in the Southern Hemisphere they complete what I have before called the quadrilateral of maritime position which in the Northern Hemisphere is represented by the United Kingdom itself and Canada, with the commanding outlook of the latter upon the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Australasia and South Africa, however, projected as they are far into the water hemisphere of the globe, give a far more complete monoply of naval position than do the northern angles of this quadrilateral. A great sea power enjoying the right to their exclusive use would in any conflict have an immeasurable advantage in maintaining command of the ocean.

The facts which indicate the industrial relation of Australasia to the rest of the Empire are scarcely less significant than those connected with naval position.

In the production of one great article of manufacture, wool, it easily leads the world, both in respect of quantity and quality. In its singular adaptation for pastoral pursuits it seems the natural complement of a great manufacturing country like the United Kingdom, and of a cold country like Canada. Its {196} capacity for supplying meat as well as wool to the United Kingdom has increased greatly during the last few years and appears capable of indefinite expansion.

The production of gold, amounting to more than £300,000,000 in less than fifty years; of silver, copper, tin and other metals, which in vast quantities find their chief market in Great Britain, indicate another important line of connection with British industry. In proportion to population the Australasian colonies take from Great Britain more than any other countries in the world; they are able to do so because they sell to her more than any other countries. Without precise figures to justify the assertion one is yet quite safe in saying that no two states in the American Union, even those lying most closely together, have such proportionately large trade relations with each other as have the Australasian colonies and the United Kingdom, situated at opposite sides of the globe.

Australia's apparent isolation has suggested to many the possibility and expediency of her aiming at an independent national life. A little study of her relations with the rest of the world shows that her isolation, at any rate, is purely imaginary. If the first glance leads us to think that the colonies most remote from Britain are likely to have the least connection with her, facts soon show us that they really have the closest of all. There is a very plain argument which goes to prove that distance under {197} the conditions of modern commerce, produces a greater community of interest than contiguity. In Canada I have put historical bias in the forefront of the factors determining towards national unity, a bias so strong that in the future, as in the past, it seems likely to defy any geographical considerations which oppose it, and to force even commercial relations, to some extent, if need be, into its own direction. In Australia the prior place must be given to geographical situation and its influence upon commercial relationship. In her interests and connections Australia is, in an extraordinary degree, European and Asiatic. Four-fifths at least of all her external commerce is with Britain or with European countries chiefly through Britain. This trade passes along waterways the safety of which depends upon the movements of European powers. It is an essential element in the prosperity of the people. A trade at present small but prospectively great in the Indian and China seas gives Australia a deep interest in Asiatic questions.