Mr. Carnegie evidently forgets that the Empire covers one fifth of the world, that it produces every article of food and raw material of manufacture, that under the compulsion of any great national necessity it could in five years make itself independent of outside supplies, with the possible exception of raw cotton, and that by the natural processes of growth and change, without any protection, it is likely in the near future, partly on account of the inability of the United States to furnish what they have hitherto furnished, to be drawing its supplies of food chiefly from its own territories. It is not my business to suggest, much less argue for a system of protection {256} for the Empire, but if it is to be discussed, let us at least take into account the elementary facts which Mr. Carnegie omits. The climax of absurdity seems well-nigh reached when Mr. Carnegie, fresh from the full operation of the McKinley Tariff and its justification, roundly accuses the Empire Trade League of making 'efforts to array one part of the race against the other part' because it has suggested a very slight differential tariff within the Empire. Life in America is not generally supposed to destroy a sense of the ridiculous.
Mr. Carnegie's criticism of another class of Federationists is that they have 'no business' in their programme, 'no considerations of trade,' that 'sentiment reigns supreme.' It is evident that he has not a primary conception of the main drift of federation policy. He is like many of his fellow-citizens in America, out of whom life on a broad continent appears to have driven the maritime instinct. Because external commerce or the carrying trade means little to the United States, or because his own country is so remarkably self-contained, he has no standard by which to measure the profound and practical significance which maritime position has for countries like Great Britain or Australia. In 1890 of the 3389 vessels which passed through the Suez Canal 2522 were British and three American. In the same year, out of the whole volume of American external trade itself, only 12.29 per cent., or about one-eighth was carried in American bottoms, of the remaining seven-eighths by far the larger part crossed the seas under the {257} British flag. Again, in 1890 the shipping cleared in England amounted in all to 3,316,442 tons, but of this only 38,192 tons were under the United States flag, although the trade between the two countries is one of vast proportions. These figures will serve to illustrate how difficult it must be for anyone looking at our national questions from an American point of view to understand the fundamental interests of British people, and perhaps explain the airy cheerfulness with which Mr. Carnegie suggests various processes of political evolution which involve the disintegration of the Empire. But Mr. Carnegie has other difficulties than those which arise from studying a question from an unfavourable angle. The intense occupations of business in America may well be his excuse for not keeping in touch with the movement of British politics; they can scarcely excuse him for discussing English affairs as if he were in a position to understand them. 'Britain,' he says, 'can choose whether Australia, Canada, and her other colonies, as they grow to maturity, can set up for themselves, with every feeling of filial devotion towards her, or whether every child born in these lands is to be born to regard Britain as the cruel oppressor of his country. There is no other alternative, and I beseech our friends of the Imperial Federation (League) to pause ere they involve their country and her children in the disappointment and humiliation which must come, if a serious effort is made to check the development and independent existence of the colonies, for independence {258} they must and will seek, and obtain, even by force, if necessary.' One hesitates whether to lay stress upon the ignorance or the folly of sentences like these. I use the words advisedly. Ignorance, because apparently Mr. Carnegie does not know that almost every responsible British statesman of the past half century and of the present day, when dealing with this question, has said that when the great colonies wish to go Great Britain will raise no objection; that this view has been re-echoed unanimously by the press and by public opinion; and that no advocate of Imperial Federation, national unity, or whatever other name we apply to British consolidation, has ever hinted at the union of the self-governing portions of the Empire as anything else than a pact entered into voluntarily by communities free to choose or refuse as they please, as free as were the States of the American Union or the provinces of the Dominion to adopt their present system. Britain has not waited, and Imperial Federationists have not waited, for Mr. Carnegie's supplications to decide this great and fundamental issue of national policy. The advocates of national unity are the foremost to proclaim it. Folly, for it is folly when Mr. Carnegie, in the face of facts like these, which nobody can question, rounds his periods with hints at cruel oppression, on the one side, and independence won by force, on the other, when discussing the relations of England and her colonies. It is on his own continent that he finds the example of states kept within a national union by force.
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If Mr. Carnegie understands little about Britain's relation to her colonies and to the world, he understands much less about the opinions of colonists. None the less he speaks of them with the most complete assurance of knowledge. A single illustration will give the measure of his ignorance. Quoting certain views in opposition to British connection expressed by Mr. Mercier, the late leader of the extreme national party in the French province of Quebec, he gravely assures his readers that Mr. Mercier reflects the sentiments of ninety-nine out of every hundred native-born Canadians and Australians. Absurdity could scarcely go further.
Mr. Carnegie poses as a political philosopher and gives English statesmen the advantage of his sage advice on national questions. We look for the grounds of this superior wisdom and we read as follows: 'What lesson has the past to teach us upon this point? Spain had great colonies upon the American continent: where are these now? Seventeen republics occupy Central and South America. Five of these have prepared plans for federating. Portugal had a magnificent empire, which is now with the Brazilian Republic. Britain had a colony. It has passed from its mother's apron-strings and set up for itself, and now the majority of all our race are gathered under its Republican flag[2]. What is there in the position of {260} Britain's relations to Australia and Canada that justifies the belief that any different result is possible with them? I know of none.' And knowing none, Mr. Carnegie, by his own confession, writes in utter ignorance of the main facts of the question which he discusses. Spain and Portugal governed their colonies from the home centre, and as tributaries. Britain allows her colonies to govern themselves, and to dispose of their own money as they please; Spain and Portugal (and England in 1776) wished to retain their colonies against their will; Britain now leaves the question of continued connection a matter which colonists are to decide for themselves.
Very interesting indeed is Mr. Carnegie's sudden change of front when he comes to look at federation as making for the aggrandisement or the good of {261} the United States rather than of the British Empire. He has just been proving the absurdity, the impossibility, nay, the criminality, of trying to knit together in some sufficient federal union the mother-land and her great colonies. He proves to his own satisfaction that the colonies never will be and never ought to be satisfied with the position they will have in such a union. Separate governments and separate governments alone will satisfy their yearnings for complete independence.
He passes by without note the idea which inspires the Federationist, who believes that such a union will make enormously for the world's peace, not only by preventing the formation of many distinct and possibly hostile states, but also by enabling British people to give security to industry over an area of the world greater than was ever before under a single flag—at least three times as great as that of the United States, to say nothing of the vast extent of ocean which the Empire can control.
With his ignoring of this leading idea of those who wish for British unity, and his ridicule of federation for the Empire, a feature of the alternative which he proposes is in odd contrast. He suggests that Canada should be encouraged by England not merely to give up her present allegiance, but to join the United States, and this is the argument with which he supports his suggestion: 'With the appalling condition of Europe before us, it would be criminal for a few millions of people to create a separate government {262} and not to become part of a great mass of their own race which joins them, especially since the federal system gives each part the control of all its internal affairs, and has proved that the freest government of the parts produces the strongest government of the whole.' Why not, one asks, for the British people as well as for those of the United States? Why may not full control of internal affairs and the freest government of the various parts of the British Empire go hand in hand with a strong government for the whole? Why may we not consider the united and sympathetic effort of the different divisions of the Empire to so consolidate their strength as to maintain peace over one fifth of the world directly—indirectly over a still greater proportion—a nobler ideal than that for which Mr. Carnegie thinks the Empire should give up Canada—i.e. the peace of America? Nor need the larger interfere with the smaller aspiration. Incidentally Mr. Carnegie himself fully admits this. After having used the possibility of conflict between Great Britain and the United States as his chief or only argument for the transfer of Canada's nationality, he goes on to say: 'Even today every Federationist has the satisfaction of knowing that the idea of war between the two great branches is scouted on both sides of the Atlantic. Henceforth, war between members of our race may be said to be already banished, for English-speaking men will never again be called upon to destroy each other. During the recent difference … not a whisper was heard on either {263} side of any possible appeal to force as a mode of settlement. Both parties in America and each successive government are pledged to offer peaceful arbitration for the adjustment of all international difficulties—a position which it is to be hoped will soon be reached by Britain, at least in regard to all differences with members of the same race.'
The Geneva arbitration, the Halifax arbitration, the San Juan Settlement, the offer of arbitration in the Behring Sea affairs, so long urged upon Mr. Blaine by Lord Salisbury before it was accepted, the arbitration arranged with France in the affairs of Newfoundland, all seem to indicate that Britain is quite as advanced as the United States in these views of peaceful settlement. With this qualification of his way of stating the case we may accept Mr. Carnegie's hopeful outlook, which takes away all the point of his previous contention. There is, however, a point worthy of his and our consideration.
I once heard Lord Rosebery express the opinion that equality of power was one of the chief guarantees of peace between great states. It adds the very powerful motive of self-interest to those other influences which incline a nation to arbitration or other fair and reasonable methods of settling international difficulties. 'If,' said he, 'it should ever happen that England became towards the United States like the old grandmother in the corner, her teeth dropping out one by one, as her colonies leave her, and she {264} were patronised or despised by her grown up offspring, this relation would not be one tending to promote friendly feeling. Far better for mutual respect, consideration, and closer friendship that each should follow out its own development on its own broad lines.' Whether a British Empire going through a process of disintegration, or one steadily consolidating its strength would be more likely to obtain equity and fair play from American politicians (who must so often be distinguished from the American people) I may safely leave even Mr. Carnegie, who knows them, to decide.