Imperial Federation: The Problem of National Unity

by George R. Parkin

British people, either at home or in the colonies, may safely be left to decide whether they can afford that their ships should be in war like land birds, unable to fly far from their own shores.'

It must not, however, be supposed that Mr. Carnegie really represents the views of the better minds of his {268} own country on the question of British Unity. In an article contributed to a leading American Magazine three years ago I had occasion to outline for American readers the chief features of the Federation problem. The editorial comment upon this paper seems worthy of reproduction as an expression of genuine American opinion on the subject, and may be commended to Mr. Carnegie's consideration. The writer says: 'What could be more natural than the "Federation" scheme for British reconstruction, which has been before the British public for years, and is now renewed in the article just mentioned? It offers to Great Britain the maintenance of every interest, legal, economic, political and moral, which has grown up in the past, and has shown itself worthy of conservation. It maintains all the ties which have held the different parts of the Empire together. It even strengthens them prodigiously by transforming the weak ties of colonialism into a true national life: so that the foreigner shall look upon Canada or Jamaica, not as temporary hangers-on of a distant island, but as component and fully recognized members of a magnificent ocean empire. It distributes the burden of imperial taxation over the whole empire, so that the Australian may look upon the Imperial iron-clad which comes into his harbour as possibly the product of his own state's taxation, while Canadian regiments shall take their tour of duty in English or Irish cities, or at the Cape. It lessens the dangers of a new break-up of the Empire through Colonial discontent: {269} the Canada or New South Wales of the "federation" could submit without a second thought to the abandonment of claims "by its own government," while there is now always something of a sting in such an abandonment by a home government on whose decision the colony has exercised no direct influence. It leaves to every square foot of the Empire that alternative of self-government in the present, or of the hope of self-government in the future which is afforded by our State and Territorial systems. Canada would be at once one of the self-governing States of the Empire: but the territories of India would have under the Federation such prospects of complete state-hood, when they should deserve it, as they could never have under a Russian Dominion or protectorate. …

'The question now is whether the inevitable development of English democracy in new directions, more particularly in that of a federated empire, shall happily anticipate any conjunction of circumstances which might otherwise force a second break-up of the Empire. It is really, then, a race against time by the English democracy.'

The closing reference to Canada may be commended to the consideration of Mr. Goldwin Smith, as well as Mr. Carnegie, since it reflects a spirit worthy of a great people.

'If, as one result, our neighbours to the north of us should become an integral part of a real empire, such a natural and simple solution will find no congratulations {270} more prompt and cordial than those of the American people, even though they are not based on any of those selfish advantages which annexation professes to offer to the United States[4].'

[1] Nineteenth Century, Sept. 1891.

[2] This statement is a characteristic instance of Mr. Carnegie's inaccuracy. Let him subtract from the whole population of the United States the seven or eight millions of negroes in the Southern States, the six or seven millions of Italians, Spaniards, Poles, Hungarians, Austrians, Russians, Germans and Scandinavians, who entered the country between 1847 and the present time, the people who with their descendants threaten, according to American writers, to overwhelm the native element of the population; let him place beside these figures the further facts stated on American authority that the emigration from Great Britain to the United States has been in the same period only about 1,500,000, and from Ireland 2,500,000; and he may find reason to acknowledge that the mass of 'our race' is still in the British Islands and in the great colonies which yet retain their distinctive Anglo-Saxon character. Mr. Carnegie makes the triumphant calculation that the child is born who will see more than 400,000,000 people under the sway of the United States. He adds the odd comment: 'No possible increase of the race can be looked for in all the world comparable to this.' So far from such a growth indicating the increase of our race, it could only mean its practical obliteration in the great Republic. The increase of the native American population is notoriously very slow—only a largely increased influx of alien races could make Mr. Carnegie's calculations a reality.

[3] Influence of Sea Power, p. 29.

[4] Century Magazine, Jan. 1889.

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