We depend as an Empire upon the co-operation of absolutely independent Parliaments. I am not talking as a lawyer; I am talking as a politician. I believe from a legal point of view that the British Parliament is supreme over the Parliament of Canada or Australasia or the Cape or South Africa, but in fact they are independent Parliaments, absolutely independent, and it is our business to recognize that and to frame the British Empire upon the co-operation of absolutely independent Parliaments.[28]
Which means, of course, that England's position with regard to Canada or Australia is just England's position with regard to any other independent State; that she has no more "ownership" in Australia than she has in Argentina. Indeed, facts of very recent English history have established quite incontrovertibly this ridiculous paradox: England has more influence—that is to say, a freer opportunity of enforcing her point of view—with foreign nations than with her own Colonies. Indeed, does not Sir C. P. Lucas's statement that "whether they are right or wrong—still more, perhaps, when they are wrong," they must be left alone, necessarily mean that her position with the Colonies is weaker than her position with foreign nations? In the present state of international feeling an English Statesman would never dream of advocating that she should submit to foreign nations when they are wrong. Recent history is illuminating on this point.
What were the larger motives that pushed England into war with the Dutch Republics? To vindicate the supremacy of the British race in South Africa, to enforce British ideals as against Boer ideals, to secure the rights of British Indians and other British subjects, to protect the native against Boer oppression, to take the government of the country generally from a people whom, at that date, she was apt to describe as "inherently incapable of civilization." What, however, is the outcome of spending a billion and a quarter of dollars upon the accomplishment of these objects? The present Government of the Transvaal is in the hands of the Boer party.[29] England has achieved the union of South Africa in which the Boer element is predominant. Britain has enforced against the British Indian in the Transvaal and Natal the same Boer regulations which were one of her grievances before the war, and the Houses of Parliament have ratified an Act of Union in which the Boer attitude with reference to the native is codified and made permanent. Sir Charles Dilke, in the debate in the House of Commons on the South African Bill, made this quite clear. He said: "The old British principle in South Africa, as distinct from the Boer principle, in regard to the treatment of natives, was equal rights for all civilized men. At the beginning of the South African War the country was told that one of its main objects, and certainly that the one predominant factor in any treaty of peace, would be the assertion of the British principle as against the Boer principle. Now the Boer principle dominates throughout the whole of South Africa." Mr. Asquith, as representing the British Government, admitted that this was the case, and that "the opinion of this country is almost unanimous in objecting to the color bar in the Union Parliament." He went on to say that "the opinion of the British Government and the opinion of the British people must not be allowed to lead to any interference with a self-governing Colony." So that, having expended in the conquest of the Transvaal a greater sum than Germany exacted from France at the close of the Franco-Prussian War, England has not even the right to enforce her views on those whose contrary views were the casus belli!
A year or two since there was in London a deputation from the British Indians in the Transvaal pointing out that the regulations there deprive them of the ordinary rights of British citizens. The British Government informed them that the Transvaal being a self-governing Colony, the Imperial Government could do nothing for them.[30] Now, it will not be forgotten that, at a time when Britain was quarrelling with Paul Krüger, one of the liveliest of her grievances was the treatment of British Indians. Having conquered Krüger, and now "owning" his country, do the British themselves act as they were trying to compel Paul Krüger as a foreign ruler to act? They do not. They (or rather the responsible Government of the Colony, with whom they dare not interfere, although they were ready enough to make representations to Krüger) simply and purely enforce his own regulations. Moreover, the Australian Commonwealth and British Columbia have since taken the view with reference to British Indians which President Krüger took, and which view England made almost a casus belli. Yet in the case of her Colonies she does absolutely nothing.
So the process is this: The Government of a foreign territory does something which we ask it to cease doing. The refusal of the foreign Government constitutes a casus belli. We fight, we conquer, and the territory in question becomes one of our Colonies, and we allow the Government of that Colony to continue doing the very thing which constituted, in the case of a foreign nation, a casus belli.
Do we not, taking the English case as typical, arrive, therefore, at the absurdity I have already indicated—that we are in a worse position to enforce our views in our own territory—that is to say, in our Colonies—than in foreign territory?
Would England submit tamely if a foreign Government should exercise permanently gross oppression on an important section of her citizens? Certainly she would not. But when the Government exercising that oppression happens to be the Government of her own Colonies she does nothing, and a great British authority lays it down that, even more when the Colonial Government is wrong than when it is right, must she do nothing, and that, though wrong, the Colonial Government cannot be amenable to force. Nor can it be said that Crown Colonies differ essentially in this matter from self-governing dominions. Not only is there an irresistible tendency for Crown Colonies to acquire the practical rights of self-governing dominions, but it has become a practical impossibility to disregard their special interests. Experience is conclusive on this point.
I am not here playing with words or attempting to make paradoxes. This reductio ad absurdum—the fact that when she owns a territory she renounces the privilege of using force to ensure observance of her views—is becoming more and more a commonplace of British colonial government.
As to the fiscal position of the Colonies, that is precisely what their political relation is in all but name; they are foreign nations. They erect tariffs against Great Britain; they exclude large sections of British subjects absolutely (practically speaking, no British Indian is allowed to set foot in Australia, and yet British India constitutes the greater part of the British Empire), and even against British subjects from Great Britain vexatious exclusion laws are enacted. Again the question arises: Could a foreign country do more? If fiscal preference is extended to Great Britain, that preference is not the result of British "ownership" of the Colonies, but is the free act of the colonial legislators, and could as well be made by any foreign nation desiring to court closer fiscal relations with Great Britain.[31]