Imperial Federation: The Problem of National Unity

by George R. Parkin

But every British colony great and small is directly and deeply interested in the maintenance of the power of the Empire, and if the continued power of the Empire involves, as it seems to do, the retention and government of India, the colonies should not shrink from sharing that responsibility.

Professor Seeley has proved with conclusive clearness that the government of India has had very little effect upon the domestic politics of England; there is no reason to think that it would have more upon the domestic politics of the Empire.

The political difficulty about India's relation to a united Empire is, however, felt very widely. It is one of the first which occurs to the minds of most men when they turn their attention to the question, as I have found during public discussion in many parts of the Empire. Nor is this to be wondered at. That a country enjoying popular representative institutions should rule as an imperial power over some hundreds {248} of millions of people without representation in their own government is an extraordinary anomaly. Men's minds have, however, become accustomed to it by long usage, and the fact is accepted almost without remark. But when a proposal is made to re-construct the national organism on what is claimed to be a logical basis, the incompatibility between our popular system of government, and the system which we apply to India at once re-appears.

The anomaly, however, would be no greater under federation than without it, and it is one with which the British mind in all parts of the Empire is familiar. Most of the great colonies have had on a small scale the experience which the United Kingdom has had on a large scale of ruling weaker races without giving them representation.

Unquestionably confusion of thought is caused by the careless use of the term Empire into which English people have fallen. Applied to India and the crown colonies it is admissible, though with the qualification that in practice the Empress of India acts as much under advice as the Queen of England. As a name for the 'slowly grown and crowned Republic' of which the mother-land is the type and the great self-governing colonies copies, the term Empire is a misnomer, and has none of the meaning which it has when applied to Russia, Austria, or the France of the Napoleons. If immediate reflection of the popular will in public policy be taken as the test, England, Canada, and Australia are more republican than the modern {249} republics; as democratic as is well possible under a representative system of government. But the people of this 'crowned republic,' proud of their capacity for self-government, and impatient of any illegitimate control over themselves, have assumed the task of governing a real Empire—one which contains a population of some hundreds of millions of various races. The legitimacy of this assumed task we need not stay to discuss. The actual relation of Britain to India as to several other countries without self-government is a fact; and one which has passed beyond the range of discussion.

This government of India the United Kingdom, upon which the work now devolves, finds it possible to carry on, and on the whole efficiently. That it is done to the good of the people ruled is scarcely open to question. British rule in India may be far from ideally perfect, but that it is superior to anything India ever had before is freely admitted even by foreigners. Is there anything in the nature of the case which would prevent the representatives of a united British race from carrying forward the government of India as do now the representatives of the United Kingdom alone?

Let us consider the system of government. To the Indians themselves no representation, as we understand the term, is given. While largely employed for executive functions they take no part in legislation. An English statesman of proved capacity, assisted by a council of experienced specialists, is placed as {250} Viceroy at the head of affairs. Under him is a trained body of civil servants, selected by a rigid system of examination. To these the general administration of the country is committed. It is a system of government by experts.

The fiscal system of India, its revenue and expenditure, are kept entirely separate from those of the United Kingdom. It has its separate and clearly defined code of laws suited to its circumstances. It has a practically independent military organization. The government of the great dependency is not only essentially different in form from that of the self-governing portions of the Empire, but revolves in a sphere of its own. The general lines of Indian policy come under the review of Parliament; the pressure of public opinion is kept upon those who rule India through the channel of Parliamentary criticism; beyond this the rule of the country is left to the specialists to whom it has been committed. It has been long since any question of Indian policy made or unmade a government.

I have met everywhere, in Britain and in the colonies, people who think that India makes a heavy drain upon the revenues of the United Kingdom, and would do so upon the revenues of a united Empire. This is an example of that ignorance which, it has been truly said, is the most probable dissolvent of the Empire. It is therefore not unnecessary to say that India pays exclusively for its own defence and government. Every soldier, white or native, from the {251} Commander-in-Chief down to the humblest sepoy; every civil servant, from the Governor-General to the lately appointed clerk, is paid from Indian revenues alone. India does even more, it pays the whole expense of the India Office in London, and for the maintenance of Aden and other ports near the mouth of the Red Sea, with their garrisons, although these give protection to other Eastern commerce and to that of the Australasian colonies as well as Indian. India contributes also to the maintenance of consular establishments in China and of the British Embassy in Persia. The resources and the fighting power of India stand today as a barrier to guard from danger the enormous British commerce in the Eastern seas, to keep back the most dangerous military power of Europe and Asia from nearer approach to the English communities of the South.

The question whether any degree of representation could be given to the Indian population would remain for a federated Empire, just as it now exists for the United Kingdom. The problem would be no greater and no less. Any step taken in that direction would no doubt be exceedingly cautious and tentative. But for dealing with this, as with all other Indian problems, a united Empire, with its consolidated strength, would be vastly more efficient than a nation going through various stages of disintegration.