The trend of political thought in the Colonies has generally been the antithesis of political thought in Great Britain. Colonial thought has always been an enigma to the British. Of recent years it has been both disturbing and confusing. The Colonial, who, with his own eyes, within the span of a few years in his own country, views the transition of a bit of landscape from barbarism to civilization, the hunter giving way to the shepherd, the herder to the farmer, cities and towns springing up over night with factories and banking established in a few months, seldom arrives at the same political conclusion as the theorist who tries to conjure up the genesis of political economy from books and musty documents. His is the school of hard experience, which teaches lessons that fine-spun theories cannot upset. It is so with his Colonial theories of economics and government. The dead weight of tradition does not hang around his neck where State affairs are concerned and precedent only counts when it is right and just.
Governor Pownall, of New Jersey, immediately previous to the time of the Revolutionary war, wrote a book, entitled: "The Administration of the British Colonies." In this work he pointed out the necessity of closer political union between the Colonies and the mother country; in fact, he outlined an Imperial constitution. He pointed out that there had always existed two lines of thought among English-speaking people. One favored unity, centralization, Imperialism, the other disunion, or individualism, claiming that in the absolute independence of each small unit of the Empire rested liberty and freedom. This struggle is still on.
Capt. R. Clifford Darling, Adjutant[ToList]
Had Pitt followed up his idea of uniting the Colonies into a Dominion, or into an even greater union such as he was pressed then to do, the American Revolution would in all probability have been averted.
But Pitt's energies were turned to the war then being carried on in Germany, and the Colonies were for the time-being neglected with disastrous results.
The historical philosophers of modern Germany cherished the delusion that history would repeat itself.
Ever since the American Revolution, Great Britain had adopted a different Colonial policy from the policy of Pitt. The navigation laws had been repealed, protection and bounties had been withdrawn, the doctrine of laisser faire prevailed.
When the American Colonies secured their independence, each colony of the thirteen was a helpless independent unit. They had united for the war of Independence, but the union was one of sentiment, there was no constitution, no common ground on which they could unite for political action. Fortunately, the war had produced such wise patriotic men as Washington, Franklin and Hamilton, and through their efforts a political union of the Colonies was accomplished. It took the better part of ten years to do this. It was part of the policy of reconstruction. Later on, the Colonies in Canada followed suit. They united under a constitution which, at the same time, guaranteed the autonomy of the provinces within and solidarity in external affairs. Australia and South Africa followed suit. The policy of Imperial unity had been gathering force and momentum, but when the great war came it had not yet reached that point where the pressing of a button would set machinery at work which would marshall all the financial, mechanical, political and military resources of the Empire. That day will come.