Imperial Federation: The Problem of National Unity

by George R. Parkin

The consciousness of exposure to attack prompted the attempted annexation of the whole of New Guinea, and explains the intense annoyance felt in Queensland at the refusal of the Colonial office to sanction that annexation. The necessity for naval protection is a permanent condition, and will probably dominate the political thought of Queensland even more than of the rest of Australia. In Rockhampton I had the opportunity of discussing, the question with a large and sympathetic audience, and in other parts of Queensland as well as there with leading politicians and journalists. Despite the superficial talk about separation, I doubt if in any colony of the Empire is the value of a great national connection more thoroughly understood by those who really dominate the policy of the colony.

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Taking the Australian continent as a whole I think it is a fair estimate to say that in every one of the colonies there is an overwhelming majority who would favour permanent connection with the Empire. On the other hand it is quite certain that in some of the colonies there is an active and aggressive minority energetically working for ultimate separation. It is for Australians and Australians alone to decide between these conflicting ideas.

TASMANIA.

The colony of Tasmania is comparatively small, but its insular position makes it one of the critical points in Australian defence. Up to the present time owing to the small population and revenue, its principal harbours have been less strongly fortified than those of Australia, and military authorities have constantly urged greater attention to its defences upon the ground that by seizing positions here an enemy might find means of coal supply and a base from which to attack Australia. Upon this point the report of General Edwards was most emphatic. The island is within three days' steaming distance from Adelaide, one from Melbourne, two and a half from Sydney and four from New Zealand. With several fine harbours, a soil and climate equal to any in the world, a considerable coal supply, and as yet only a limited population to resist attack, Tasmania {225} would present to any hostile power not merely an opportunity but almost a temptation to establish a Gibraltar in the Southern seas. Tasmania has strong commercial reasons for wishing to federate with Australia. On the other hand in an Australian federation she would have the strongest reasons for opposing separation from the mother-country. Like New Zealand, she depends for safety upon naval defence, a defence she could not receive from the colonies of the continent.

So far as it is possible to judge from external indications the opinion of this small but strategically most important colony is almost entirely in favour of close and permanent connection with the Empire. During discussion on the subject carried on in the principal centres of population, and extending over some weeks, I found that the idea of British unity was heartily supported by everyone of the leading newspapers, and by most of the principal public men, including the leaders of the Government and Opposition. Opposing ideas have their representatives in a small group of sincere republicans, headed by the present Attorney-General, the Hon. A. Inglis Clark. The republicanism of this small party was the more interesting, as it seemed to me quite unconnected with and superior to the irrational and bitter anti-British feeling which occasionally finds expression in one or two of the Australian colonies.

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NEW ZEALAND

In New Zealand I found among politicians, journalists, and the public generally, a remarkable consensus of opinion that the circumstances of that colony would always compel it to regard questions of national defence and consolidation from its own point of view, and in a large measure independently of Australia. Facts justify this attitude. New Zealand is 1000 miles long and nowhere more than 150 broad. Cut in two by a broad strait and penetrated by numerous bays and inlets, it has 3000 miles of coast line, and is therefore more exposed from a naval point of view than any other equally fertile, wealthy, and thinly settled country in the world. That it is an outlying part of Australia is an illusion left on many minds from a casual glance at small maps of the Southern Hemisphere, but the illusion vanishes the moment we visit the country or consider the facts. Twelve hundred miles of open sea separate it from Australia. The trade between the two is growing, but it is insignificant compared with the flood of commerce which pours from each towards Britain. The similarity of production will probably make this a permanent condition, save when drought compels Australia to look to New Zealand for food supplies. Britain is New Zealand's one great market, and it has become a more steady and reliable market from the means which have been devised to transfer the perishable produce of New Zealand farms to the {227} British consumer. Meanwhile, in her isolated position only naval power can give the colony adequate defence. The states of Australia can give effective support to each other—they cannot give it to New Zealand until they possess a fleet sufficient to command the Southern seas, and such a fleet they will not possess at any time within the range of present political calculation. Among reflective men in New Zealand one finds no readiness to believe that geographical isolation could be relied upon for giving military security, an idea which has considerable vogue in parts of Australia. 'I see that the tendency of enterprize and science is every year more to annihilate space, and space will be annihilated for purposes of war as well as peace, and the distance of the colonies from those who may attack them every year becomes less and less of a protection to them.' These words of Lord Salisbury express not inaccurately, I think, the prevailing thought of all serious politicans in New Zealand in regard to their country. The feeling is strengthened by a further consideration. New Zealand has already a good deal of trade with the scattered islands of the Pacific. This trade is likely to have a large development as time goes on. At any rate New Zealanders have formed a very definite ambition to acquire a large commercial connection and powerful influence in the Pacific, an ambition which can scarcely be realized unless its commercial interests have adequate naval support.

Considerations of the kind I have mentioned explain {228} the comparative indifference of the colony to Australian federation, which would never satisfy her necessities except as subsidiary to the larger national union. They explain the fairly unanimous support which her ablest public men have given to the general principle of national Federation. Mr. Ballance, the Liberal Premier of New Zealand, said in the House of Representatives, in a discussion which took place prior to the Australasian Federal Convention at Sydney, that 'Imperial Federation, with a free management of its own affairs as at present, was the only future he would look to for the colony.' Equally strong expressions could be gathered from the speeches or writings of most of the leading men of New Zealand. The fear lest Australian Federation might ultimately lead to separation from the Empire was publicly and expressly assigned as a reason why New Zealand should not be a part of the Australian commonwealth. Inside an Australasian Federation New Zealand's influence would be steadily thrown in favour of British national unity. On the other hand, should Australia ever move towards separation—an improbable contingency, but one often suggested by a few of her journalists and public men—the advantage in prestige and more practical ways which New Zealand would derive from retaining the wide national connection, and becoming the centre of the Empire's naval strength in the Southern seas, would infinitely outweigh anything Australia could possibly offer, and would decide the course to which {229} self-interest even now points. The individual interest which New Zealand thus holds towards the question is very significant, and worthy of careful attention. Placed in the centre of the water hemisphere of the globe this 'Britain of the South' seems the precise complement of the mother-country at the centre of the land hemisphere, while a conjunction of circumstances,—the possession of excellent harbours, already very fairly defended, and easily made impregnable, a plentiful supply of coal, timber, and metals, a climate which never fails to favour abundant crops, and nourishes a sturdy race,—fits the country to be the opposite pole of the Oceanic Empire which Britain has created. Distance might be supposed to have lessened commercial intercourse with the mother-land; as a matter of fact it is greater in proportion to wealth and population than that of any other country. Roughly putting the exports of New Zealand at £10,000,000 per annum, £7,000,000 go to Great Britain, £2,250,000 to other parts of the Empire, and only the small remaining balance to other countries. The proportion of imports is not widely different. Community of interest could scarcely be greater than this. The safety of this trade, too, is of the very essence of the prosperity, one might almost say of the commercial life of the country. Its stoppage would mean financial and industrial paralysis. We have therefore some measure of what the security guaranteed by the greatest naval power in the world means to New Zealand.