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Q.REAT passions make great nations, said Carnot, ^ the organizer of victory; and he might have estabbshed his apothegm, both by history p^i by his own experience. ' The French of an earher generation had been the terror of Europe : under Louis XIV they had dreamed of umversal monarchy; they had ravaged the Palati- nate; but for a voluntary and timely inundation they would have overrun Holland; they had defied Europe, and had fallen only before a continent in arms In the reaction that followed those great passions they had fallen into contempt : under the debauched Regent, under the effeminate and voluptuous Louis XY they had abdicated their throne among nations. But under the good, stohd Louis XYI, the revo- lution once more stirred up great passions: among the lower classes, ardent desires for equality, and for revenge on an oppressive aristocracy; among the ,highest, irresistible dread, and a longing to put down by foreign strength the impudent attempts of the B (am fl^ \ 2 KSSAY T. canalUe; among all classes that remained at home, terror and anger at threatened invasion, and burmng resolutions to drive back the aggressors, and to carr; through Europe, at whatever cost, war to the palace, peace to the cottage. The nation was again great^ Greater still the nation became after the XVli. . Brumaire, when during fifteen frightful years, the mal- \ eficent genius of Napoleon rode upon the wave of these great passions and directed their storm. After this outburst followed another reaction, and Bourbon France lay humiliated, discontented, querulous, rebuked under the more constant genius of her old msular antagonist. France felt herself no longer great. Great in this sense the Enghsh have no wish to be. With their orderly political convictions, they would think it shame to decree renunciation of foreign con- quest, and as a commentary, to seize on Savoy and Avio-non : they would hold themselves disgraced if they propagated by fire and sword, the limited government they love : they would not submit to the humihation of seeing a British Charles XII playing the Don Q ixote of real hfe, or a British Napoleon turning the soil ot Europe into a military and bloodstained chessboard. The French boast themselves the leaders of civihzation. according to my definition of the word, the Enghsh are ahead of them by a century. But great in other senses, the Enghsh are and wish to be. They are right in desiring the greatness of heading the civihzation of the world : of combmmg empire with good faith : of holding nations captive, , , J I «npj«««p|pw| t home, burninpf to carr; d palace. I great. e xvir the mal- \ wave of ' a. After \ Bourbon 1, rebuked d insular ;reat. ish to be. ley would reign con- ^avoy and 3ed if they overnment ailiation of 3n ixote the soil of jhessboard. ;ivilization. he Enghsh ih. are and Q greatness ' combining >ns captive, THE COLONIES. 3 not by force but by services rendered; by Dooabs reclaimed, by railroads constructed, by peace main- tained, by justice admioistered, by industry protected, by slavery and torture and Suttee and infanticide abolished, by government carried on for the benefit I ) of the subject. Long may it be too, before we forget our historical titles ! There are indeed, tliinkers, and sincere thinkers, who measuring their countrymen by an ideal standard, can see nothing but their shortcomings. These strange philosophers, bhnd foHowers of a foreign genius, who neglect the history of mankind, and are ignorant of practical affairs outside schools and colleges, are content to evolve their theories of national hfe out of their own thoughts. They smile contemptuously, and with no little fatuity, at those who devote themselves to the slow process of induction ; and who painfully construct a standard from experience of the past : who nourish their minds with the recollection of our political liberty at a time when France was the willing slave of a despot ; of our rehgious liberty when Spain was man- acled and scourged by a fanatical priesthood ; of our centuries of glory in literature and philosophy; in later years, of our peaceable developments in manu- facturing skill, daily industry, and unequalled com- merce ; of our national tenderness and sympathy with the oppressed, not without result, since it carried to a successful issue a Crusade nobler than that of Peter the Hermit, a crusade against pirates and menstealers. Centuries ago, our great passions made us a great ^ 4 ESSAY I. nation. TJnclor Queen Elizabeth our sustained revolt against tlio Papacy, strengthened by horror of the Smithlield fires ; our well founded dread of the stealthy, unscrupulous, and daring Jesuits, ready to do whatever ill at whatever risk, if the Church's work might bo promoted : our half despairing resolve to go out and fight the Armada, and the joyful revulsion when the shng and the stone had beaten down the blaspheming giant: all these passions made us truly great. Under the Stuarts, rehgious persecution. Laud and the Starchamber, Strafford and his thorough, Claver- house and Lauderdale, the sword and the thumbscrew, roughly nursed into passionate life the Puritan, the Covenanter, and the Cameronian; and driving a handful of zealots across the Atlantic, laid the foundations of a mighty democracy. The sombre passions of that century multiplied tenfold the greatness of the EngUsh race. Then came as our antagonist the magnificent Louis Quatorze; the would-be universal monarch. His youth- ful, immeasurable schemes of conquest, backed by his subjects' lust for glory ; his violent encroachments on his peaceful neighbours ; the dazzling height to which he elevated his country ; exciting among us some fear and more jealousy, made us wiUing to head a resolute coalition against the public enemy. After a dozen years of struggle and of vast pecuniary sacrifice, the unfaiHng victories of Marlborough, aided by his diplo- matic genius, raised our island to the highest pitch of greatness ; which showed the brighter by contrast 3tained revolt lorror of the f the stealthy, ) do whatever )rk might be go out and ion when the blaspheming great. 3n, Laud and 9ught Claver- thumbscrew, Puritan, the ing a handful jundations of ions of that ■ the English ificent Louis . His youth- acked by his achments on ^ht to which IS some fear id a resolute ter a dozen sacrifice, the 3y his diplo- ighest pitch by contrast I THE COLONIES. 5 with the gloomy destitution into which France had faUen. Our great passions had done their work. Again, at the close of the last century, the minds of Enghshmen were stirred to their depths. It is interesting to watch, in a periodical of the time, the growth of angry feeling against France : to trace re- sentment stealing step by step over successive papers, just as on a listener's face a smile is followed by an earnest look, and this by an austere frown. Men of liberal sentiments had hailed the capture of the Bastille as the dawn of liberty. But the violences of the French mobs, left unchecked through the king's volun- tary abdication of just authority; the anarchical con- dition of town and country: the wholesale massacres; the violent death of a king who had not like our Charles provoked his fate by hereditary statecraft; and of a queen whose beauty and grace were celebrated by the genius of Burke : all these gradually produced the pity and terror of the grandest tragedy. When Napoleon, after the XVIII Brumaire, arrived at the head of affairs, the English had reached a state of mind fit for the greatest and blindest efforts ; and during the next fifteen years they poured out blood and treasure, until the enemy of Europe was finally subdued. Our great passions had raised us to be tha greatest of nations. Since those days our national Kfe has been com- paratively tame. France has passed through two more revolutions without attaining tranquiUity : continental Europe in 1848 trembled with political earthquakes : I mmtm 6 ESSAY r. Italy has I,alf ble„aod its discordant provinces into one great country: Gern.any has partly realized its aspirations after nn.ty : Russia, depleted by the Cri.nean war, and no>v involved in the whirlpool of partially cmancpated serfdom, has ceased to be the bugbear of Europe. But our career has been little disturbed : the eontmental alarms of 1848 only startled the timid with the,r echo; even the Crimean war failed to goad us nito passionate feeling. Is there no danger that so peaceful a course should mterfere w,th our national greatness ? should sap its oundat.ons while we are content with tranquil procn-ess ;n wellbeing P May we .ot tremble, seeing the ^^e ! lence of the "Manchester School," who would fain open our ports to the widest commerce, but as to politics, binld around us Berkeley's wall of brass ? au pain, mais jo te d»lio do nous donnor dcs liommes." m May we not dread the predominance of the modern Epicurean school ? n.on.,0, ,e ^'..n tz zst:''::;T^: "-'^'^ r""- en santd son corps sou esnrif ,.f ^ ^^ P''°P"''' '^^ *«""' no laissent pas iL re' ets "1 - " ^ '' "' ^°"'' '"' ''' ^^'""^ ^"^ do SOS pro^L i>:^:;.f:tr,:^:^rs:^^^^ tenter par los fonctions et les honnourr, ' VT ! "^ '^ ^^"'^ P''^« on d'etre froissd dans ufo t^r^^:: t^f' ^T^ "" "^'^"^ ami do la science il se onnfpnf. ^ ' ''^'''''''' P^"^ '^^ ™oins "::^:r : :; irr :;i:r rn^ "^^" "^- '<^' THE COLONIES. vmces into 'oalized its lie Crimean if partially bugbear of iirbcd: tlio timid with goad us rse should Id sap its 1 progress he preva- ^ould fain 3ut as to brass ? 3u cotoii, du imes." (II e modern 10, epincrim io ambition ise de tenir plaisirs qui lit, so garde le laisse pas T un risque IS ou moins Sans troj) emps place ire. Quant no songe a tt il dispose \$a vie avee tmc jinulence tim'ule, so ramasao on sol, bo llmito, no so rdpand va dehors que dans I'amitid, qui lui parait siiro, ou il jouit des soutimontB ju'il inspire ot dcs coux qu'il dprouvo. Son cgoisino qui oat nohlo, ot \M\ voudrait i^tro ddlicioux, a compria quo la bietivoillance cat la charme ie la vie, qu'on on soit Tobjct ou qu'on I'accorde aux autrcs." '^i What would become of our national greatness, if [such sentiments as these prevailed, nursed into life by )eace and prosperity? what, if the following passage |of the eminent scholar, M. Renan, described our own educated men? " Lo gouvorncmont des choses d'ici-baa apparticnt en fait "k do tout autres forces (|u'a la science et a la raison ; lo pcusour no so croit qu'un bien faible droit a la direction dcs affaires de sa planeto, et, satisfait de la portion qui lui est dchue, il accepte rimpuissanco sans regret. Specta- teur dans I'univers, il sait que le moiido ne lui apparticnt (pio commo ■ujet d'etude, et lors ni6mc (pC'il pourrait le r/iformer, peut-etre lo trouve- t'il si curieux tel qu'il est, qu'il n'en aiirait pas lo courage." (3) Such sentiments might be endured in Epicurus; one of a nation whose liberty had been extinguished by Macedonian force : they are pardonable in Lucretius, who had himself seen the rivers of Roman blood shed by Marius and Sylla, and had himself trembled at Catiline's conspiracy : they might be treated with in- dulgence in a Frenchman under the First Empire, when absolute power and military glory had crushed political life. Uttered at the present day, even under the bewildering uncertainties of the Second Empire, they seem to me base and detestable, though issuing from the pen of a writer whose genius I admire ; and if, as is falsely said by a commentator, they naturally follow from " every speculation which takes a character more or less scientific," the sooner such speculation is 8 ESSAY I. banished from our land, the bettor will it be for us. I am glad however, to find that these are not the dohberate sentiments of M. Kenan, but only a wlum flippantly published. In a recent article, he has ^wen ns his deliberate opinions, and has protested agamst being led by philosophy into political iudifierence.'* But ''the passage I have quoted, expresses no doubt, the opinions of many speculative minds. Is there a probability of the predominance of such epicurean sentiments in Great Britain? No doubt, wo are partly protected from the danger by the play of our free institutions. Since 1815, we have escaped revolutions ; but we went very near to one in 1831, when with a little less political wisdom among our rulers, blood would have been shed. For fifty years there has been the Roman struggle over again; the struggle between people and patricians. As in Rome, so in Great Britain, the people have won the day; and as I anticipate, the victory will not be abused, in Great Britain any more than it was m Rome, but the democracy will submit to the natural limitations imposed by social traditions and by the pressure of a fully peopled country. These blustering gales have saved us from stagna- tion and tranquil corruption. But the severity of the storm is past : there scarcely seems room for ardent political passions. Are we then to become the slaves of an indolent or speculative egotism ? to the dolce far nlente of an epicurean, or to the contemptuous curiosity described by Renan ? THE COLONIES. 9 I fear tlmt many oxcollcnt persons, partisans of tlio Manchostor school, will meet mo bore, by denying the necessity of national greatness. They will say that we have enough to do at homo; that our attention would bo much better directed to needed improvements in Great Britain; that wo ought to apply all our strength to the promotion of education, the correction of vice, the purification of our towns, the raising our labourers' condition; that till wo have done these things wo have no right to go abroad for adventures or glory. Now, if by concentrating all our energies on home reforms, we could hope to accomplish these at once, I should be a partisan of this narrow benevolence : but when we come to particulars, we find that undivided attention and the greatest sacrifices will no more succeed in suddenly improving our social condition, than equal attention and sacrifices will suddenly raise up a wood where there is only a coppice. The late Duke of Devonshire is said, with the help of Sir Joseph Paxton, to have removed a full grown tree, at an expense of many hundred pounds. He got a stunted tree : a small proprietor will get a far finer tree, at no expense, by patiently waiting. If we expended our wealth and our energies on impatient efforts after social perfection, we might approach the nulHty of a Jesuit "^araguay, destined to perish ; but we should have no free England, the vigorous off*spring of storm and sunshine. Peter the Great tried to force the advance of his !i ! :■)■< : -. 10 ESSAy I. people : after nearly two centuries they are now only "pawing to get free" from that serfdom which England naturally escaped from many hundreds of years ago. Josep^^ II urged on artificially the political progress of his kingdoms, and was beaten by the prejudices he disregarded. There is no royal road either to knowledge, or to social excellence : time t)ie great consoler, is also the great reformer. If the reverse were but true, if the cost of a Crimean war applied at home, would rescue us once for all from vice anc uncleanliness ; the nation would joyfully submit to the cost : what would be a hundred millions spent in such a cause ? But we find that all our efforts accomphsh so little, that many excellent but impatient persons cry out for abitrary power to compel people to come in : overlooking the main con- dition of the problem, which is, to train people to help themselves. I beheve therefore, that if we were to abandon all our foreign possessions, and to resolutely determine that we would interfere in no European quarrel ; not even if France were to forcibly appropriate Belgium, and Spain, Portugal ; not even if Russia were to take possession of European Turkey, Greece, and Bohemia ; not even if Prussia were to lay liold of all Scandinavia ; I do not see how we could with all our concentrated energies, drive out vice and unhealthinesc^. The lesson we want taught is that of self-help : but this cannot be bought or enforced. All we can do is to remove un- favourable conditions, and in the case of children to THE COLONIES. 11 insist on scliool instruction, a small part of true education. Beyond this, you. get into tue Jesuit- Paraguay experiment, which may perhaps have made innocent people, but certainly did not make men. I sincerely believe also, that in surrendering the greatness of our country, we should throw an obstacle in the way of training all classes : who seeing around them a national timirHty and a disregard of the claims and sufferings of other nations, would fall into that epicurean apathy on which I have already remarked. Indolence and self-indulgence are the vices of the prosperous : these would steal over us unresisted, when we had abdicated our present magnificent throne. To me it seems that to hold fast our distant possessions, is an efficacious antidote to the national indolence and self-indulgence which I deprecate : that -.othing can be better fitted to keep up those lofty sentiments Avhicli maintain our position as a great nation. Not indeed, that I would keep a single colony, or a single naval station, for tlie mere purpose of fostering our nride. To surrender a possession, not through cowardice but through a conviction of duty, is nobler than to keep it. I felt that England reached her highest glory, when in the plenitude of her power, urged by no base fear, she took the unexampled course of retiring from the Ionian Islands. I would even abandon Gibraltar en sufficient cause being shown ; though it ought to cost our liearts many pangs to abandon that grand trophy. I find, and I am i! II L 12 ESSAY I. glad to find, that grave and tliouglitful men, despisers of mere tradition, accustomed to accept and to promote the newest views of social reform, still fondly chng to the maintenance of our hold on that Mediterranean rock. As to those timid politicians who say that since we have held it nearly a century, we had better retire before other great powers eject us, I agree with those who reply, let them come and turn us out. We will go out on the promptings of duty ; we will not go out under fears of armed force. An Enghshman, a few years ago, described his sensations on visiting India : his heart he said, swelled high when he saw the Enghsh flag floating over the dusky natives. Tliat visitor's patriotic satisfaction was well founded. Though we may blush at many offences committed by us in India during the last century, we can say with truth that in no other country has a foreign and despotic rale been exercised so thoroughly for the advantage of the governed. I grant that sucli swelling of the heart is caused mostly by the sense of the greatness of one's country, and might have been experienced by a Spaniard under Philip II, by a Frenchman under Louis XIV, by a Eussian before the Crimean war. But it is heightened and made permanent in our case, by the conscientious conviction that our greatness is founded on equity and benevolence. And yet there are to be found men, and men of distinction, who speak of our Indian possessions as a misfortune : as a charge entailing duties and responsi- ly THE COLONIES. 13 bilities which wo should do well to cast off! True epicureans these, who say to their countrymen, take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry: as to national greatness, that is the dream of enthusiastic fools. For myself, I regret the grander and rougher days of Chatham and Burke, when such half-hearted English- men would have suffered the scorn they deserve. I have spoken of the swelling of the heart felt by a traveller. An old friend of my own, long desirous of seeing for himself the great continents of the world, at length was able to leave his affairs in his partners' hands, and took the opportunity of visiting in succession, Australia, India, and America. He then felt the truth of what a Frenchman has said ; that the Teutonic race, by its Anglosaxon branch, has taken possession of half the globe : and his warm heart must have been wonderfully changed if he had not rejoiced, seeing the spread of his native tongue, and remembering how our ancient rivals, the French, had once hoped to make theirs the universal language. The United States indeed, have long ceased to be our possessions : they taught us a lesson which we have thoroughly learnt, not to use force against a great colony desiring to be free. But the United States, great as they are, had their beginnings in a few ship- loads of emigrants ; left pretty much to themselves, as Canada and Australia are now left ; battling with the Indians, piously hunting out witclies, cruel and fanatical with tlie vices of their day, but growing up in the strength of freedom. Let us then foster colonization, h\ m Mid 14 ESSAY I. that in Australia and New Zealand other United States may grow up, to exhibit in another hemisphere the language and literature, the moral energy, and the Protestant liberty of Great Britain. So shall we maintain the greatness of the mother country. Suppose now that my friend, on visiting Australia, had been preceded by an Act of Parliament, declaring that colonies were a nuisance and ought to be got rid of; and requiring the Austrahans, north, south, east, and west, to get ready for immediate independence. Say that a visit to New Zealand had found the settlers raising a militia, and getting ready a political constitu- tion, in preparation for our departure : India too, we might imagine about to be left to its own resources : to the mercies of new Hyder Alis and Tippo Saibs ; to unchecked incursions of Mahrattas and tyrannies of Bunjeet Singhs. "Would my friend have returned to England proud of his country: or would he rather have taken up his parable mth Burke, and denounced the calcuicitors and sophisters who had succeeded to the grand statesmen of old? Most men however, are more stationary than my friend, and confine their wanderings to Europe or America: they neither scour Hindostan, nor put a girdle round the earth, in search of pleasure, instruc- tion, or health. Yet we who vegetate at home, are stirred up by those who go and return: we Hsten eagerly to the accounts of strange races subject to our dominion ; of manly Maoris and dusky Hindoos : we are fascinated with the descriptions of the arid plains of THE COLONIES. 15 Australia, of the steaming atmosphere of Calcutta, of the minarets of Benares the Splendid. These reali- ties surpass the fictions of the poet ; who, indeed, can transport us to Thebes and Athens, to China and Peru, but cannot stir us as does the sight of the man who returns from visiting them. Our minds are enlarged: we remember that the Maori and the Brahmin and the Santal are our fellow subjects, and we learn to appreciate the greatness of our country. The extensive civil and military services in India, help this practical education. The European soldiery is now very numerous, and each private sent from this country is the centre of a little circle of learners at home. I have known a young artizan enlist, to escape the result of a youthful error. After a time he sails for India : his parents weary for a letter ; and the long time it takes to arrive, brings home to the mind of the family more geography than they ever knew before. Then there come a few lines with uncouth names, and hints of outlandish people and unheard-of customs; and if the youth lives and returns, he has strange tales to tell of the greatness of the English power throughout the world. The civil service teaches the same lesson to the middle classes ; who from the time of Clive downwards have had the administration of India in their hands. The Governor-Generals indeed, have frequently been of aristocratic families: such were M > -.lis Wellesley, Lord Cornwallis, Lord WiUiam Bentinck, Lord Dal- housie : the Queen's troops, distinct till lately from the i-f ■■ t if fj IQ ESSAY I. Company's troops, were commanded as they are at home, by noble or rich men : but our Indian empire has been created, organized, saved, by the mercantile and middle classes. The competitive examinations con- stantly going on, interest gi'eat numbers in Indian questions: and the youths who succeed in getting appointments, more skilled with the pen than the private soldier, constantly remind their friends by their letters, that there are other English subjects besides those who live within the narrow bounds of our little islands. Those who have no such correspondents, still know something of our Indian empire. Many in their youth, have learned how passionately Burke assailed Warren Hastings in Westminster Hall, and with what ghttering dramatic force Sheridan supported the accusation: more have read and re-read the biographies of Clive and Hastings, perhaps the two first of Macaulay's Essays : some are not ignorant of the Indian career of the Wellesleys. The Black Hole of Calcutta, the battle of Plassey, the ravaging of Rohilcund, the treat- ment of the Begums of Oude, the capture of Seringa- patam, the murderous battle of Assaye, are classical among us. Our minds are trained to heroism by these deeds of our fathers : surrender India, and in a few generations such exploits will look to posterity as faint as Cressy and Poitiers look to us. Even mere readers of newspapers and periodicals, learn a good deal. Algeria is much nearer to us than India : the French have great possessions there : at one THE COLONIES. 17 time Abd-el-Kader stirred up a fanatical rebellion. "We read accounts of the war and forgot tliem, retaining only an exaggerated recollection of the suffocation of a tribe in a cave by Pelissier. What Englishman forgets the Indian Mutiny ; Delhi, Cawnpore, Lucknow, Havelock, and Colin Campbell ? I cannot say that we know much of the conquest of IScinde, of the Punjaub, and of Burmah : but we know nothing of the recent French occupation of Cochin China ; and we take the liberty of skipping the long and repeated articles in the Bevue des deux MondeSj on the Exploration du Mekong. We read with pleasure of the exploring of the Indus ; and we have a painful sympathy with Captain Sturt who died the other day, poor and blind, after aiding adventurously in tracing the great rivers of Australia, the ever-diminish- ing Macquarrie, the Darling, the Murrambidgee, the Murray, and the Victoria. All these exploits, in war or peace, have been per- formed by Englishmen. Give up India and Australia to anarchy, or to the Russians, the French, the Germans, and we should turn with loathing from these great countries, and from the noble sentiments they now arouse. Let us then hold fast our colonies, so long as we are not forbidden by the claims of kindness and justice. I 18 ESSAY I. 11. TP it be true then, that national greatness is a just i obieot of desire ; that those who do not share that desire "are unworthy of tlie advantages they enjoy as citizens of a free country; and tliat a passionate but Tstened patriotism teaehes us to hold fast our colonies as a means of maintaining our true greatness, and o staving off the indolence and self-indulgence natura to a prosperous nation; it still remains to consider at what cost this consummation may be attained. First as to the money cost. For myself, even it that were considerable, I should be disposed to make light of it: for with the fixed conviction I have that our national greatness would be sorely imperilled by the loss of our foreign possessions, I could not condescend to weigh that greatness in the scales against an annual expenditure of even many millions. We now spend nearly 25 millions £. a year on our army and navy. If by cutting loose from us, Canada Austraha, India, and our smaller possessions, we could at once reduce the 25 miffions to 23, this would be a great triumph in a ministerial budget: it would be graU- fying to all who had to pay 4d. instead of 6d. m the £. for hicome-tax : and shortly afterwards, when we found ourselves the laughing-stock of the world; when we experienced for the first time the contempt of France and Germany and the United States; there would be THE COLONIES. 19 a cry for the disgrace of tlie ministry which had so humihated the country. What a sacrifice for what a result 1 Two miUions a year saved, and the national greatness gone! To rescue half a dozen EngUsh officials, we spend eight or ten milhons ; to keep the Cossacks from the Mediterranean, we spend a hundred millions ; and we grudge an annual outlay of a fifth or a fiftieth of such sums, to maintain our position as the first of European nations. I have mentioned two millions as the hypothetical cost of the colonies to the mother country. I have fixed on this sum, because a few years ago, a careful estimate showed it to be what we were then spending : the entire amount of four millions which appeared as our expenditure, being fairly divisible into two equal parts ; namely, two millions appHed to keeping up the naval and other stations, such as Malta and Cape Coast Castle, necessary for the protection of our commerce, and two miUions applied to the protection of Canada, New Zealand, and other colonies. Since that time, the Colonial Offi.ce has been labour- ing to diminish this two millions : we know from, the newspapers what a struggle has been going on between New Zealand and Lord Granville, as to the maintenance of British troops in the colony. On our part it has been said: the colony now governs itself: as it has the delights of independence, it must take also the responsibilities and the cost. New Zealand has, no doubt, to deal with natives endowed with masculine quahties, too often guided by savage instincts, and r.i 20 ESSAY T. applied to the services of passion and treacliery. Our North American colonies in their earlier days had equally warhke and more treacherous tribes to encounter. But if New Zealand has its troubles, and even its horrors which make our flesh creep, it is free from those difficulties which beset our early American colonies. Its progress has been astonishing. Twenty years a-o its annual exports were not £100,000; now they are 5 millions £. : an increase of fifty fold in twenty years. Its sheep have increased from one fifth of a million to nine millions, It^ cattle have increased from 30,000 to 300,000, Its horses „ „ 3,000 to 70,000.<^' So prosperous a community may fairly be called on to pay its own expenses. Gradually then, we may expect to reduce our cost of 2 millions £., to a far smaller sum. 1 do not say we may expect to reduce it to nothing ; because I imagine that with our extensive and varied possessions, there will probably be always some requiring more or less assistance. Jamaica, for example, has never flourished since the emancipation of the slaves was forced upon her : we gave what seems a liberal compensation ; we are told that even if slavery had continued the com- petition of other sugar-growers would have ruined the old island : but after all, here is a distressed colony, and we cannot set aside its claim upon us. Just as at home, in the case of a destitute family, we do not say : your father in his prosperity might have provided for vou • ffo starve ; there is no place for you at nature's THE COLONIES. 21 feast : so in tlio case of an embarrassed colony, we must acknowledge the claim founded on real want. I feel the force of the objection : that to relieve tlie distressed colonist you tax the distressed householder at home ; that you have no right to levy a duty on the poor man's tea that the Jamaica creolo may be aided. I answer, that this is an excellent reason for revising our system of taxation, but not for refusing assistance to a colony. Government expenditure may be divided into two parts. In the first part comes that for police, army, navy, justice; all institutions necefitniry for protecting the subject at home and abroad : I should add other things such as poor law relief, and primary education. The poorest man partakes directly of the benefits conferred by these institutions : he may therefore be justly called on to pay his share of their cost : he has no more right to get these for nothing than he has to get his bread and his clothes for nothing. In the second part may be placed all the ornamental portions : the Queen's palaces and her privy purse ; the allowances to the royal family : gi'ants for art and high education; for national galleries and portrait galleries : the expenses of brilliant embassies. In these, the people at large are only indirectly interested. I believe it would relieve much discontent, if a clear distinction were made in the Chancellor's annual budget, between these two classes of expenditure. When new Joseph Humes ply their invaluable task of analysing the public accounts, it would be satisfactory m tit Ai 22 ESSAY T. to bo able to say: you object to this adcbtion to Buckingham Palace, or to that embassy for congratu- lating the King of Italy, and to a certain grn.nt for Manchester and Glasgow Colleges; remember that tho funds for these purposes are provided by tho richer classes, and not by tho poor man's taxes. I am not satisfied with tho possible reply, that tho income-tax is the very fund I demand : that it supphes on the average far more than these extraordmary expenses, and that it is not levied on the poor. I would it were so 1 This tax is levied on all persons having an income of £100 a year. Are there no poor among such persons? Is not the middle-aged curate with £100 a year, a poor man ? or the middle-aged surgeon with £150 a year, or the middle-aged solicitor with £200 a year ? These men are required to look like gentlemen, and they are really poor ; whereas the artizan who may live as he likes, is not poor with £80 a year. The hardship is aggravated by the absurd arrange- ment which charges the tax on the whole income and not on that part of the income above £100 ; so that with a 6d. tax (for small incomes) the receiver of £99. 19s. pays nothing, and the receiver of £100 payL £2. 10s., and is the poorer man by £2. 9s. A further aggravation was added by Mr. Gladstone ; and in my estimation it is so ,Trwous a cruelty that it cancels a considera]3le r^>^-^- ^ ''^ ^^^ ^^^* services he has rendered to his eoantry. Sir Robert Peel fixed the limit at £150, but Mr. Gladstone reduced it to £100. THE COLONIES. 23 ♦.'S The sufferers are just that class who have little political influence, and who have had to bear tl oir sufferings with what patience they possess. Every man who takes part in affairs, has some thorn of remorse left in his mind, and Mr. Gladstone may some day feel the wound of this thorn. Such a fund as I require, has therefore still to be formeJ ; a fund for superfluous expenditure : and out of this fund I should be quite willing that wo should pay the colonial expenses which continue to fall on us. Thus, we should escape the charge of taxing the farm- labourer's beer, or the curate's tea, to support a national greatness which such men ought not to pay for so long as their own necessities are barely supplied. I have said that the annual expense of two millions is in course of reduction, and though it may not be extinguished, may probably be brought down to a small sum. But even if the expense continued to be a paltry two miUions, (paltry in comparison with the true greatness we buy with it) I should think it wisely incurred. I believe however, that even on this improbable supposition of our having to permanently disburse two millions annually, we should not be losers even of money, because we should far more than recoup our- selves. We are told indeed, that if free trade were universally adopted, it would be a matter of indifference to our commerce whether our colonies w^ere governed by us, by some other European power, or by them- selves. I may answer that free trade is not universally t 24 ESSAY I. £. 8. 8 10 1 7 5» JJ JJ J5 »J J5 3 4 10 8 3 5 d. 6 6 adopted, that there is no near prospect of such a con- summation, and that if we may judge by the practice of the United States, a newly settled country is not the part of the world where free trade is popular. As to the actual commerce going on, it is worth while to look at the following figures, which refer to a period thirty years ago.''' In 1838 every Brazihan took from us manufactures to the value of . • • Every inhabitant of the United States . Canada Our West Indies . Cape of Good Hope „ Australia We must remember that the Americans are a far richer people than the Canadians, and are therefore capable of importing much more. But even if free trade were universal, I cannot believe that the possession of colonies would be a matter of indifference to our commerce. It is far easier to trade with persons who speak your own language. No doubt, if the present colonies were cut oif "from us, they would go on for a time talking and writing Enghsh. But who can say what might be their fate ? One might throw itself into the arms of France; another might become a Trussian dependency: for those great European powers would move heaven and earth to get a share of our cast off possessions. German emigration would be diverted from Ohio to the new German Colony : the German language would be THE COLONIES. 25 substituted and our commerce would suffer. Besides, if we surrendered our claim to the unsettled parts of Australia, there would be nothing to prevent other European powers from starting colonies there, as France has actually done in occupying New Caledonia, when we declined that island. Though France is un- successful in colonization. North Grermany is great in emigration, and now it is becoming a great maritime power, there is no reason why its shoals of emigrants should not form colonies of their own. The preachers of indolent surrender, overlook the existence of other European nations, burning with envy of our possessions, smiling at our proposed abdication, and eagerly waiting the opportunity to take our place. How little should we look, if vrQ found that in surrendering our greatness we had lost our commerce also ! What sort of gratitude might we expect from our sous, when they fult the destructive consequences of our indolence ! I will say little of emigration, because we see that it can go on without the possession of colonies. The swarms of people from North Germany, who hive for the most part in Ohio and the neighbouring states, prove the n^edlessness of colonies for this purpose. But with regard to the educated classes the case is different. There are constantly growing up among us numbers of young men, many of them fresh from Oxford and Cambridge, indisposed to enter the Church, unfit for the Bar or unwilling to await its uncertain awards, shrinking from Medicine, and wanting intro- duction intj business, with no prospect of a home, and 26 ESSAY I. I I ;B S quite ready for travel and adventure. Our Indian admin- istration attracts many such men, our colonies a few. I find objectors who go on repeating that we cannot spare the emigrants, for that we are not over- peopled. I reply that if an artizan is without employ- ment, it is no comfort to him that a ploughman is wanted in Lincolnshire: it is better for the artizan and better for the nation that he should go abroad where he can get work, and where his children will easily get forward. It is useless to have men, unless they are men in places they are fit for. We are told also, that those who go are the best, the backbone of the nation: that the resolute and enterprising go abroad, leaving the timid and apathetic at home. This is not the whole truth. If I look around among young men of my acquaintance, I see some who are worthy of all respect, but who cannot settle down to a fixed town employment: who long for movement, air, sunshine, and storm, and who are impatient under the monotonous restraints of everyday occupations. These are the men for volunteer fire brigades, and in case of war for fighting; but they are not the backbone of the nation in times of peace. Emigration, employment in India, a mission to the end of the world, form their natural resources. In sending them away, we get rid of an explosive material, dangerous in quiet times : we apply the material to a useful purpose, on the plains of Australia, or up the country in India. In one sense these are our best men : they are the best to go, not the best to stay. THE COLONIES. 27 III. BUT however immense may be tlie advantages to ourselves, in reputation, in real greatness, in commerce, and in social arrangements, we have no right to retain our hold on our external possessions, against the true interest of their inhabitants or even p gainst their deliberate wishes. I have already said how delighted I was when England set the example, the first in the history of the vrorld, says M. Guizot, of retiring spontaneously from a foreign possession. The Ionian Islands may, or may not, be the better for losing the fostering care of a rich, spirited, and just nation, and casting in its lot with a barren and distracted little kingdom. My sympathies however, are with the lonians : I would rather be poor with a government of my own people, than rich with a government of foreigners. At any rate, we were right in yielding to the expressed wish of the inhabitants : and we were fortunate in having an opportunity of showing our real greatness, by voluntarily retiring. If therefore, the Dominion of Canada should clearly and calmly determine to ask us to retire, we should be bound to go. But since no one can foresee what is likely to happen in this respect ; since it may turn out that the slight, silken bond which unites the colony to the mother country, is infinitely stronger than an iron ' , I i r .1 I '! i ,'i''. MB. 28 ESSAY I. cliain of military force; it is useless to discuss the probability of separation on account of incompatibility of temper, and we are limited to the inquiry, what the real interests of the colonies require. Do the real interests of the colonies require us to abandon them to their own unchecked management ? True greatness should be the patriotic desire of every community, great or small ; of a colony as of a mother country. Mere individual life; labouring only to exist and to get rich; disregard of social excellence; carelessness about true national distinc- tion ; are as contemptible in the new world as in the old, in the southern hemisphere as in the northern. But if you turn a colony adrift, if you leave it to struggle for existence, if you cut it off from direct sympathy with the old world and with its delicacies and refinements, you leave the colonists to devote themselves unchecked to the pursuit of their material interests. Even so great a country as the United States, after nearly a century of national life, is much wanting in the higher accomplishments of older nations. Wliile the Americans have multiplied ten- fold, and their wealth has increased fiftyfold, their distinguished men have been few : they cannot produce ten soldiers such as George "Washington, ten statesmen such as Alexander Hamilton, ten philosophers such as Franklin. How long will it be before higli works of literature, philosophy, and art, arise in New Zealand or Canada? But so long as these settle- ments uro parts of our Empire, they share our THE COLONIES. 20 achievements, thej^ partake of our glories, they sympathize with our successes, they are Englishmen. They have few historical monuments, but they share in those of Great Britain. They have no York Minster or ■Westmin^ r Hall; but when they visit those venerable places, they feel that they are theirs as much as ours, since the colonist is a unit of the empire. The Americans also, try to feel in this way : they say that their ancestors as well as ours raised and illustrated those wonderful edifices : but they are conscious while they are speaking that nearly a hun- dred years ago they violently, though wisely, entered on a career of their own, and disclaimed all sympathy with reverential European sentiment; and that onoe every year they proclaim in the strongest language their superiority over the effete Europeans. The Protestant, if he pleases, may boast that his ancestors shared in exalting the Pope above the world of kings and emperors, in denouncing Huss, in persecuting Wycliffe ; Ijut the Roman Catholic reminds him that for four hundred years his church has renounced all satisfaction in such deeds. The Americans can raise but a faint claim to our past glories : the claim of the colonist is as good as tliat of the Cornishman or the Scotchman. There are men to whom these considerations appear transcendental : men who beheve in their own superior enUghtenment, and show their wit by sneering in choice language at the romantic notions of a past generation. Let them sneer on, and dehght in raising a facile laugh among clubs and coteries. Tlie great pifl |f H^ I t 30 ESSAY I. lessons of philosophy and history will survive their futilities. But there are considerations which even the pro- saic, the worldly minded, the cynical, cannot neglect. We have surrendered to the colonies the right of making their own laws as to all things local : we have reserved to the imperial parhament and the British Government the determination of all matters affecting the whole empire. In administration however, even in some things directly interesting only the colonies themselves, the crown has kept its old powers ; as for example, in the appointment of a Governor. This is reckoned a small matter: yet it might not appear such if the practice were changed, and if each colony had to make this appointment for itself. Look at the United States, with a population now much outnumbering our own: see with what eager- ness the election of a President is conducted; with what previous discussions, with what party meetings ; with what newspaper virulence and monstrous lying; with what unscrupulous misrepresentation of opponents' motives : with what unblushing scandal and calumny as to the candidates proposed ! If such unbridled passions prevail among so huge a people, what would be the bitterness and hatred stirred up among a hun- dred thousand, or a million of people, hving compara- tively near to each other as in New Zealand or South AustraUa ? We know that in the small Italian republics of the middle ages, so dangerous was the political . X THE COLONIES. 31 excitement attending the choice of a Doge, that the power of election was surrendered to another state which had no interest in the matter : just as if lately, Spain, in the agony of fixing on a king, had formally called on Queen Victoria to make the choice. If we did nothing else but appoint governors to our colonies, our services would be great. Again ; there is the admixture of races. Very near to us we have a formidable illustration of the difficulties arising from this : in Ireland we see Celts and Saxons living together ; two great streams flowing side by side for centuries and not mixing. Most of us believe that if we cast off Ireland, as we are told to cast off our colonies, the Celt and the Saxon would soon be at each other's throats. In Jamaica we have lately had a humiliating example, of the injustice which may be practised by Englishmen when deahng with other races. Whatever opinion we may form of Governor Eyre ; whether we regard him as a man who with open eyes did his duty, knowing the hazard to his own reputation and future prospects ; or rather as a resolute man with a narrow field of vision, capable of being a hero to-day and an oppressor to-morrow, first the generous protector of bushmen, and afterwards the severe repressor of coloured men : whatever may be our estimate of Governor Eyre, we cannot deny that among his advisers and subordinates there was an unscrupulous ferocity worthy of the com- panions and successors of Columbus ; nor can we have forgotten that those bloodthirsty men, far from being ^\ ■ in 32 ESSAY T. punisliofl by their West Indian fellows, were regarded as the saviours of the colony. Let it be considered by those who clamour for abandoning the colonies, how they would feel when they heard that an absolute military i)ower established by the whites, had been followed, as it probably would be, by a negro insur- rection, accompanied by all the violences and abom- inations which converted Hajrti from a great French colony into a half barbarous negro kingdom. But besides the difficulties between one race and another, there would be difficulties between different portions of the same race. Englishmen, at home or abroad, are tenacious of their rights and prompt in defending them. At present, if Jamaica is wronged by Barbadoes, an appeal is made to the sovereign power ; which arbitrates, pronounces, and forbids recourse to violence. Left to themselves, Jamaica and Barbadoes might ruin themselves in a passionate struggle. Great Britain, the lord paramount, keeps the peace among her vassals, without demanding the payment of blood and money formerly enforced by the sovereign power. A great state has lately been created in America. The two Canadas have been amalgamated, and with the addition of Hudson's Bay and the smaller provinces, now constitute the Dominion of Canada: an English province, with a population as gi'eat as that of Holland, and a territory as extensive as that of Europe. We all know that Nova Scotia, having at first agreed to the project of amalgamation, afterwards declared that it had been surprised into assent, and desired to with- > THE COLONIES. 88 egarded ered by ies, how ibsolute id been ) insur- l abom- French ace and iifferent lome or )mpt in Qged by- power ; >urse to ,rbadoes Great among )f blood power, .merica. ad with ovinces, Enghsh loUand, le. We jeed to 'ed that :o witli- draw it. Much discussion, recrimination, negociation : at last Nova Scotia gave way. Now if there had been no predominant power to appeal to, there would have been great danger of violence : the Canadas, conscious of strength, would have used high words ; Nova Scotia, irritated and gradually rising to fighting pitch, would have embodied volunteers, purchased arms, appealed perhaps to France, or the United States. Blood would have been shed; and perhaps Nova Scotia would have belonged to a foreign power. Travel to the other side of the world. There we have a number of colonies in different parts of the Fifth Continent; we have New South Wales, Tasmania, South Australia, Western Australia, Victoria, and Queensland : if we withdraw our claim to dominion, these six settlements would become so many inde- pendent states. The project of a federation would of course be renewed : we might require such an arrange- ment as a condition of our withdrawing : the proximity of the settlements to the seaboard would facilitate this; though after all, distances of thousands of miles would make it difficult notwithstanding the aid of tele- graphs. Again; to protect the Australian Federation against the intrusion on the continent, of French or German colonies, we mi-ht make over to the Federation all our sovereign rights. Yet there would still be a probability of dangerous complications. The boundaries of the new states of the Federation, would be vague, in a country so imper- fectly mapped out: the sheepruns of New South 34 ESSAY I. Wales, might unwittingly bo carried into Victoria or Queensland: certain goldfields on tlie borders might be contended for by two of tlie states ; and taxes paid to the one might be claimed by the other. At present the sovereign power admits no resort to \iolence or e\en threats: but with a weak central government at starting; with individual provinces not bound together as were the United States, by a seven years' struggle with England, and long afterwards by fears of a renewed contest; with a rough people, many of them not unacquainted with crime; there would be danger of quarrels more severe than the American ones, when New Bnglanders refused to take part in the naval war with Great Britain, or Carohna's nulhfication yielded only to General Jackson's threats: there might arise on a small scale a civil war such as that which has lately desolated the fTnited States. In New Zealand, there are two distinct interests : the northern island contains the greatest part of the Maories ; the southern island contains few of them ; would a government common to both, do its duty in protecting the north? Even now the difficulty is felt, but it is prevented by our control, from being aggravated into violent quarrels. As to the Cape, I find the following remarks in the year 1867.'^' In Grahamstown, "The Eastern province is determined on separation from the Western. The late session of Parliament has shown that sooner or later this must come to pass. The Eastern province, almost entirely English, naturally ohjects to being literally dragged into bankruptcy by the Western (Dutch). The Western is, of course, able to gain a THE COLONIKS. 35 Blight majority in Parliament, returning three more members than ita Bister province; this is the only obstacle, so Hay the Easterns, to separation. Since Government will take no steps to put an end to the endless ravages made bj the Caffres on farmers' stocks in Caffraria, it is not to bo wondered at that in those parts the frontier people are very anxious to be taken out of the hands of their neighbour province, since all the money voted by Parliament appears to be spent in Capetown improvements, and the expenses of the Frontier Cape Mounted Police are being cut down. People in England have no idea of the enmity existing between East and West." Six months later there occurs similar information, with complications of geography difficult to unravel. "Grahamstown.(8i The mail from the Orange Free State (»> has just arrived, bringing news calculated to make traders and intending settlors pause before proceeding up country. The Basutos aro determined to prevent the Boers occupying the newly acquired district. •The country,' says the Friend, 'is rapidly drifting into a chronic state of hostilities, which must, if a better policy be not adopted, continue till our white population are beggared and ruined.' The report of a rising against this miserable Dutch Government on the part of the English proved to be unfounded, but as a friend just arrived here in- formed me yesterday, it is not unlikely to take place any day. The Government have declared that * the country could not afford a police force,' so the purchasers of land refuse to occupy without protection. Of course, with this continual agitation going on, no one will risk capital and there will be no new comers. The Government of the Orange Free State can neither keep peace with the surrounding tribes, nor can they conquer them. The English partj would be in favour of annexation, but probably the Boers would not, for the Dtitch as a rule detest the English in their hearts all over South Africa. It is very doubtful too, whether our Government would care about having anything more to do with our former territories, though their climate an(i soil no doubt are far superior for agricultural purposes to the uncertain seasons and poverty-stricken lands of the British provinces." Here you have a colony, planted originally by the Dutch, and taken from them by the British forces. Perhaps we should have done wisely on the conclusion of peace, to restore the colony, retaining a naval ■i 36 ESSAY I. • i i ^ station if wo saw fit. But this course was not taken : under a British government, numbers of KngHsh have estabhshed themselves. The former Dutch settlers, (the Boers) have remained and have multiplied : they hate the English as foreigners, as conquerors, and as men who a generation ago, impoverished them by putting an end to slavery. Enmities of race have a wonderful vitality ; witness Ireland, Poland, and as readers of George Sand's admirable Consuelo know, Bohemia. Generations may pass away before the Cape disputes are composed ; unless indeed, the British should grow so fast as to greatly outnumber the Boers, just as they have grown and outnumbered the Canadian French. I say nothing in thi^ place of the Caffres, though they create further difficulties. Certainly, it is unpleasing to us to find men of our own race, speaking such a barbarous lingo as the one caricatured in Artemas Ward : we recoil from the habitual revolver and Lynch law: we should unwil- lingly see introduced into Canada and Australia, the periodical Presidential struggle, ending with the dismissal of foreign envoys, and civil servants down to the very postmen. Let us try to save our colonies from these blots on civilization. We should not feel proud of a renewed struggle between the Europeans and the coloured men of Jamaica; nor of another 1839 in Canada; nor of a war among E'iglish Boers and Caffres at the Cape. We should be henr-tily ashamed, if through indolence we had left the Dominion of Canada to coerce Nova THE COLONIES. 87 Scotia, or if horoaftor wo found in Now Zealand tho southern island refusing to help the northern against tho Maorios, or the various Australian settlements fighting about goldfields and sheepruns. For the sako of the Colonies themselves, let us hold them fast. t IV. TT^HATEVER may be our conclusion as to keeping * * our foreign possessions generally, we must all feel that the reasons on either side are stronger in some cases than in others. As to Gibraltar'^"' for example : whatever may be our patriotic exultation, in holding a rock wliich we took by force more than 160 years ago, and the defence of which by Eliott with his red hot shot, is one of the familiar feats of British arms, we cannot conceal from ourselves that there are urgent reasons for considering the proposals to abandon it. I go no further than this : I believe that I should be better pleased at first to find that after full and candid inquiry we held ourselves justified in retaining the place; but I am convinced that if we arrived at the opposite conclusion, second thoughts would make me more proud of my countrymen when they vacated the place voluntarily, than I should be if on sufficient grounds they resolved to keep it. It would be the repeated 41' 38 ESSAY I. glory on a grander scale, of the cession of the Ionian Islands. The one powerful argument in favour of retiring, is the resentment felt by the Spaniards at seeing the rock in the keeping of foreigners. We are bound to constantly repeat the commonplace question, how we should feel if the Land's End were garrisoned by Austrians : we should not be reconciled to such humili- ation even though we had borne it five hundred years. It is alleged that the Spaniards hate us, and will continue to do so while we hold Gibraltar. The same writers who insist on this fact, at the same time de- nounce our " selfish greed of power," and declare that our treatment of Spain has been "selfish, haughty, and oppressive." If this be true, the withdraw al of our garrison would not secure to us the afiection of the Spaniards. There is an obvious reason why it should not. Sixty years ago we undertook their defence against the French: after six years' fighting at our own expense, we drove the invaders ove^ the Pyrenees : at Talavera, at Salamanca, at Vittoria, we beat them in pitched battles. But these battles were won by the British: the Spaniards reaped the benefit, not the honour: the necessities of war compelled our great general to censure the vacillation and the unreadiness of the Spanish armies ; to treat them as mere supple- mentary miUtia, who could hold a post but could not manoeuvre in the field ; and finally on entering France, to order them back as insubordinate plunderers. The V THE COLONIES. 39 services we rendered were too great to be forgiven ; the Spaniards were "bankrupts in gratitude:" the exhibition of their own mihtary incapacity by the side of our unfailing success, maddened them with envy and jealousy. These mahgnant sentiments might no doubt, gradually disappear, but for the unfailing irri- tation caused by Gibraltar. The various writers on this controversy are apt to begin with saying that « they discard the sentimental question:" meaning apparently that it ought to be discarded. But I contend that the recollection of our ancestors' prowess in taking and defending the rock, is just what should not be discarded, and should even be carefully fostered. Yet I am quite willing to listen to the declarations, that though the place, properly defended, is impreg- nable, yet that it is worth nothing to us as a fortified post ; and that the anchorage of the bay is bad, with msufficient shelter for vessels, while Ceuta on the opposite coast would suit our purpose better : but I also pay attention to the contrary objections that while Gibraltar is ours, Ceuta is not; that the climate of Couta is bad, and that even if fortified at whatever cost, it could not be made secure. I conclude that I should much Hke to see a public inquiry, with witnesses from France, Russia, the United States, and Spain itself. It might turn out that just as the Great Powers committed to our care the Ionian Islands in trust for Europe, so they would now protest against our withdrawal from Gibraltar, as believiiio- tl,e «'• I' 'i 40 ESSAY J. defence of the Straits safest in our keeping. So sup- ported we miglit safely, and with an unhurt conscience, refuse to withdraw. The case of Canada is quite different. There is a remarkable accordance among all parties in England as to the desirabihty of being well rid of a colony so near to the United States, so far from our shores; so accessible to American attack, so manifestly impos- sible for us to defend. But we are equally agreed that to withdraw before the Canadians desire our departure, would be pusillanimous and base. If the Canadians should be unwilling to give up their birthright as Englishmen ; if they should shrink from the stump oratory and corruption attending the election of a President ; and would rather have a Gov- ernor sent over by the crown, preferring an Enghsh gentleman to a popular tailor; and if they should be willing, in order to secure these advantages, to abstain from protective duties on British commerce ; the con- nexion between us may continue, until the Dominion of Canada grows into a powerful ally, as valuable to us in any unhappy dispute with America, as Scotland was formerly valuable to France in her wars with England. The greatest of all our dependencies however, is India ; and the possession of that vast country makes us an object of envy to every European nation. If we are fit for the high calling of governing such a magnificent province ; if our predominance is applied to beneficting the Hindoos; if we really accomplish V ?^ THE COLONIES. 41 what the Great Mogul formerly attempted, in protecting the subject races from oppression by the Mahometan conquerors, in keeping the peace between hostile tribes, in preventing the growth of robber chieftains, in con' structing roads, water course:^; and reservoirs ; then we may with a safe conscience maintain our sovereign power. Eemembering the course of events before we became masters; the breaking up of the Mogul Empire; the rise of unscrupulous princes such as Hyder Ali and Tippoo Saib ; the growth of the Mahrattas in the Western Hills, and their devastating and constantly repeated descents on the peaceful plains, ravaging, enslaving, and burning ; and seeing the impossibility of constituting any native central power which could hinder the return of such anarchy and misery, I rejoice to think that in the interests of humanity we are com- pelled to hold our ground, and are as unable as most of us are unwilhng to listen to the base proposals of feeble epicureans. Whether we will or not, we must continue to be a great nation; fulfiHing the duties, and accepting the responsibilities, of greatness. There are men, I know, who sincerely deny the right of any people to force themselves on another people as their governors : and who adopt the cry of India for the Indians. I reply to this in the words of Earl Grrey.<"' years'of ^I-r. ""' ' "^'"'' "^ ^'''-'^''''^^^ ^^^^ ^'^^ fo"nd, in the earlier rial °^,^" !''^^^ supremacy, to prevail very generally amonrj the M.,her cW of native socety in the various countries of British India which V ^^lar r"; { '^""f ' r'^^ °^^ '^™"'^«"' ^"^ *^-^ --^^4 veiy similar may bo observed wherever a eemi-civilized or a barharoiii 42 ESSAY I. !« i"? people is brought under British rule. That rule is generally a blessing to the population at large; but it is not less generally obnoxious to those who, as priests, or chiefs, or nobles, have been at the head of the native society, because, in addition to their feeling painfully their inferioTlty to the ruling race, they also find that they can no longer maintain their station among their own countrymen, when British authority interferes with the exercise of their former tyrannical power, and when British example and the diffusion of education gradually emancipate the minds of the mass of the population from the superstitions by which they are enthralled." That we are hated by the old Mahometan conquerors, and by Hindoo princes, and by priestly Brahmins, I have no doubt. But if the same hostility prevailed among the masses, we certainly should have been ex- terminated during the mutiny; outnumbered as we were by a thousand to one. Apparently, we no more maintain ourselves by force, than did the native rulers before us. What a Hindoo may feel on this subject is told us by an Enghsh critic, reviewing a recent book by Bholanaitth ChuuderJ^^^ " The most interesting parts of the book are those which convey to us the opinions of the Hindoos with reference to our Government in India, or which describes the aspirations of the native population. The author, no doubt, gives us the views of the more intelligent and educated section of his race, but he is also well acquainted with the condition and wants of the general population. Of the Mahommedans he speaks, as may be supposed, with aversion and dlsWco. He is quick to perceive the ivillingness of the Mussulman to oppress the Hindoo, if he had the poiver. He remembers the wrongs of his people, and is attracted totuards the Enghsh because they have rendered a repetition of those wrongs im- possible. More than once he dwells upon the fact that every man in India IS free to worship according to the dictates of his conscience. 'The Mussulman,' says the Hindoo, 'is a fangless cobra, that bides the time to raise his head from the dust.' Of his own people, the Bengalees, the author frankly admits that if the English were to leave them ;m THE COLONIES. 43 masters of themselves, they would 'on the next day have to apply to the British Parliament for succour, with epistles styled, The Groans of the Bengalee.' " On this opinion, and on others of the same kind, I feel much satisfaction in quoting French authors; because I am convinced that however candid they may be, they would not strain the truth in our favour. Now we find M. G. Lejean saying as follows, with regard to the mutiny, and with regard to the protection of the weak against the strong. "The(i3) insurrection of 1857 does not show that India was dis- contented, or desired to return to its native princes; it was a pretorian movement, with religion for a pretext, and was aimed at the Hindoo people as well as at the English predominance. The supporters of the revolt were native aristocrats irritated against a system which bridled their organized spoliation of the laborious classes. Most of the Sepoys belonged to this squirearchy, impoverished by the suppression of abuses, and to whom the East India Company had opened the ranks of their army, a career which supplied them with honourable means of existence, and preserved them some importance in the eyes of their coimtrymen. Their first act on restoring the Mogul Empire at Delhi m the person of old Bahadur-Shah, was to sack the shops. Accordindy the masses took no part in the movement; and at the present time as then, a hostile army invading India, would be recruited with only a few incurable fanatics, the loose population, and the bazaar thieves. The Hindoo people, timid, gentle, docile, subtle, and intelligence, perfectly understands that it has nothing to gain by a change of masters, and that no new government will surpass the present in the matters of civil and religious liberty, equality before the law, and security for person and property." i^ ov^ i French praise of an Indian administration is nothing now. Nearly forty years ago a young man, clever^^ rather conceited, prejudiced against the English, left his Parisian literary associates, to spend some years under the dominion of the East India Company. This V ':■ I I' 1 it 44 ESSAY I. is Victor Jacquemont's testimony, as it will be found in a late article of the Edinburgh Review, "One'i4) must have travelled through the Punjaub to know what an immense benefit to mankind English rule in India has beer ! How much misery it spares eighty millions of men! A numerous class of the population in the Punjaub lives by the gun. -"' l- • orhapa a most wretched class, but in strict justice it has no righ o y. • hing except to be hanged. I cannot witness the horrible evils . i ich a system without heartily wishing that the English may carry their frontier from the Sutlej to the Indus, and that the Russians may occupy the other bank. It is generally believed that a terrible collision between these two great Powers will some day or the other decide the fate of Asia- but I am mclined to think that then, and then only, peace will reign in these vast territories. European civilization desires to invade the universe. In default of the civilization the domination of the West IS an immense benefit for tae peoples of all the other parts of the world; and it is probably the only boon that the religious institutions ot the East will allow us to confer." I will quote much later testimony: another passage of M. G. Lejean in 1867. " Contenta5, to secure in India the magnificent position bequeathed by the Company, England has no inclination, and probably never will have, to run hazardous risks. The recriminations of certain journals against English encroachments in India are quite out of date Far from accusing England of interfering with native liberty, one may'rather reproach her with being restrained by financial considerations, from making further annexations, profitable alike to general civilization and to Hindoo well-being. I have merely traversed this country, but I have seen how certain petty tyrants, such as the Maharajah of Cachmere. the Nawab of Bhawulpoor, and the Guicowar of Baroda. treat the pe;ple. the gentlest, the most industrious, and the most docile of the East Surely one might say that English policy suff^ers the continuance of these brigands in the heart of its Asiatic empire, to teach a lesson to its own subjects and to make them appreciate by comparison, the U-uly exemplary administration by which they benefit." A year later, in 1868, I find in the Ilevuc dcs deux. Mondes, a notice of Mr. Kaye's Lwes of Indian Officers. The French critic beo-ins thus.*^"' %* THE COLONIES. 45 tho expansion of modern races, our attention is fixed above all on thn colossal empire which the English have created in India. Z"ere else has the tnumph of our civilization been so complete; nowhere else has he snpenonty of European manners shone out so brightTy To annex twen y native states one after another and in fact one by another to modify he cruel practices and the narrow spirit of Brahminica ca;te ea cettld ce:rt 1"'."'"^"^^ °' ^'^ ^^'^"™^*-^' *° -*"wish a peaceful and centralized government on the ruins of monarchies ex hansted by tlie intestine struggles of eight centuries, to rule 180 m] ions sented by the contemporary history of India, and this great task has been accomplished in less than half a century." I do not understand liow half a century can be assigned as the period of our work; but if we say a century, the marvel is great enough. The writer ^oes on to say that the EngHsh poHcy succeeded so well because ' "It has been carried out by wonderful instruments, by the civil or mi itary servants of the Company, energetic men. with \.Io^eaZlnd perseverance, ambitious as men should be when they go four thousand leagues to seek their fortune." mousand • .^ ^°^^'»'^«'- °f the same year, 1868, there appeared in the mm^tenr, a ■' Report on British India, presented to the Mnnster of Agriculture, Commerce, and PuMio Works, by M. Jacques Siegfried (of Mulhouse) " The Pall Mall Gazette'"' says of this report : "M. SicsWod is almost enthusiastic in his senoral v:„„. „f ,1. present position and prospects of India in a materiaTZ o "ew i,° Ills appreciation of the part which the n.iti.l, r "^ """ """^ • "d njo. t„o British nation Id ,..h.l\';i:,io'„ '^0'^^™*;!*!:. of that prosperity ,s certainly complimentary. 'The Dnriish" IT for the last few years), a practical spirit which is very remaAl e Treating as secondary those ideas which were once all.™,7erL of al'n lute domination, exclusivism, and oven to .ome o.tentTa^i;';:: i I 1 46 ESSAY I. propagandiBm also, they now appear especially preoccupied with the material interests of their possessions. Their leading object seems to be that of mcrcasing the well-being of the populations, and introducing them to civilization through the method, a little circuitous perhaps, but which appears to me the surest, of commerce and exchange of products.' " I find the Mcvue des deux Mondes^^^^ noticing M. Siegfried's report in much the same manner, and witli equal implied approbation. "M. Siegfried no cache pas I'enthousiasme que lui inspire I'oeuvre do la race anglosaxonne qui a su imposer des lois ^ un pays six ou sept fois grand comme la France et peupl^ par 200 millions d'habitans. Lo sol, qui est dune fertilite exceptionelle, fournit tons les produits qu'on lui deraande et pent alimenter un commerce d'exportation colossal pendant que la co onie elle-m6me offre a Industrie europdenne un ddbouchd presque illimitd. Toutes ces ressources. on les voit sc ddvel- opper a vue d oeil sous I'influence d'une administration que M. Siegfried nous reprosente comme un modhle de bonne politique." Even Russia, as I see, adopts a tone of praise The Journal de St. Petershourg, while expressing its satisfaction at the moderate tone adopted by us as to Russian affairs in Central Asia, says that in thZ^'lT ^"^'^ "^'^''' ^^' P'"'"^^"^ *^"* ^^''^ '' "°^ "0 country in the world which does not approve of its rule in India, and regard il as a pledge of civilization." '^^feara it This eulogy may be hypocritical; but in that case it is " the tribute which vice pays to virtue." To retire from India then, would be to leave the gentle Hindoos a prey to the fiercer Mahomedans • to leave the field open to soldiers of fortune to cut their way to thrones : to expose the plains of India to more devastations by new Scindiahs and new Holkars like those painfully put down by Sir Arthur Wellesley' to substitute oppression for justice, and anarchy for THE COLONIES. 47 order. Even to talk about retiring, must seem to a Frenchman a phenomenon so strange, as only to be accounted for by that latent madness which is generally found in an English brain. As to material prosperity we may say of the Indian Continent what Earl Grey says of Ceylon.'^"^ " Its native races are utterly incapable of governing themselves, and yet they certainly would not submit to be ruled by the mere handful of Europeans who have settled among them, if this small body were unsupported by British power. The great wealth which within the last few years has been created would be destroyed, and the most hopeless anarchy would take the place of that security which now exists and under the shelter of which such promising signs of improvement are begmnmg to appear." To throw up the task of governing the ancient East, would be as weak as it would be wicked : we should justly incur the contempt and execration of civihzed nations. V. TN the previous sections I have given my reasons for J- beheving, that in maintaining our present pos- sessions, we should benefit all parties concerned : our- selves by continuing our real greatness : the colonists, by sharing with them the refinements of an old civil- ization, and by saving them from judges appointed for a term by those whose causes are to come before them, and from gaol warders chosen from drunken rowdies who have been useful in elections. i r I ^«. ' \ I 48 ESSAY I. f* If these advantages had to be purchased by damage inflicted on other nations, we should have to consider whether such damage overbalanced the good accom- plished. If for example, we had kepi; up the old- fashioned restrictions; if at the present moment we shut out France and the United States from the Canadian trade; if we required a preference to be given to our merchants and manufacturers in Australia and New Zealand : if we maintained the regulations of forty years ago, which excluded from India even Englishmen unprovided with a permission to reside there; then, the advantages I have spoken of might be dearly purchased. But the entire freedom we have conceded to our colonies, and the liberal and kindly manner in which we have dealt with the East, have removed all such drawbacks. As to the world at large too, I think it may be shown that English predominance could not be spared. That our relations with foreign nations might be con- ceived as purer, juster, more unselfish, cannot be denied : hoAvever much the people at home may desire that we should do right, the performance of duties must be entrusted to agents, to men like ourselves, with affections and passions and vices. Yet to wiiat other nation could we wisely surrender our predomi- nance? To France, whose home government is still unsettled? To Germany, whose recent treatment of Denmark shows how grasping she is ? To Russia, the bugbear of the East ? It cannot be denied that our foreign policy is wiser, E?;r X THE COLONIES. 49 ■ damage consider accom- tlie old- nent we [•om the se to be Australia ^ulations iia even reside )f might we have d kindly ist, have may be ) spared, be con- mot be ly desire f duties irselves, to what )redomi- : is still jment of ssia, the is Y\aser, juster than it was a century ago ; half a century ago ; a (juarter of a century ago : we may fairly ask to bo allowed to complete our improvement : we may say that as "we work by wit and not by witchcraft," dilatory time ought to be taken into account. If the question were whether all nations should abandon foreign possessions, and should henceforth abstain from acquiring any, that would require serious consideration. But if we retired from India, what is to prevent Russia, France, Germany, the United States, from sharing the East ? Canada, Austraha, New Zealand, might become the prizes of conquerors. These possessions actually belong to us : they excite in our hands less envy than they would in the hands of other nations. The peace of the world requires us to leave its map untouched. Which of the great powers is ready for a self-denying ordinance ? Not the United States, which covet Canada, Cuba, Mexico : not Russia, which incessantly urges its armies eastward, and desires to clutch Constantinople : not France, which has lately in the East taken Cochin China by violence, and appropriated New Caledonia, an island we declined. But to many persons there are other considerations still more interestinar. We all know what was the unhappy fate of the gentle races found by the Spaniards in the other hemi- sphere : one of the most disgraceful chapters in the history of man, is that which tells us how European fanatics baptized hundreds of thousands of happy and Ij E 60 ESSAY I. 1 helpless people, and then condemned them to slavery so severe and brutal that they died as if by pestilence. Their only protection came from the mother country ; and the most amazing thing in Mr. Holps's interesting history, is the care taken by the austere Philip II (care sincere though vain), to compel the wild soldiery to respect the rights of the natives. The treatment in North America of the more warlike tribes, has been far better : yet extermination follows. Some fool or knave on one side or the other, is guilty of violence : passions are aroused : the Indians avenge their wrongs by bloodshed and outrage : larewell then on both sides to moderation and justice. War to the knife becomes the rule, and it can be restrained only by a central power. It i3 the same with ourselves in our colonies and in India : the natives are d d niggers; potting black crows is a legitimate amuse- ment. In New Zealand wo have a finer race to deal with ; yet at times our sentiments are no less savage. Not long ago the New Zealand IlerahV^^^ suggested that a French officer once smoked a number of Algerians in a cave, and that the natives had never troubled the French since. " But England has become troubled with qualms of conscience, or it may be a sentiment about aboriginahsm." There should be "a war of vigorous measures; it should be complete and final." The settlers " should go the length of extermination." I would recommend this passage to the attention of a most respectable paper,'^^' which while conceding THE COLONIES. 61 several years before, that in the West Indies a strict control was necessary on our part to protect the negro race, maintained that at the Cape and in New Zealand it was " at once wisest and most merciful to leave the Colonists and the natives to fight out their contests by themselves." This was urged on the ground that all our efforts on behalf of the natives had foiled : yet quite recently I find another London journal contending that we have succeeded too well,'=^^' for that our treat- ment of the Maorios has sometimes erred by excess of kindness. That colonial legislation requires careful watching is easily seen. In August 18G9, I find the following account : "The (24) Capo Parliament has had a bill under discussion rem,- lating the relations of masters and servants. It was proposed to inflict on the servants flogging, imprisonment with hard labour, spare diet, and solitary conhnement ; the masters were unly to be fined. Considerable indignation we are told, was manif..sted by the European class (labourers I suppose) hkely to be aflfected; but it was explained that the measure was mtended to uffect only Caffres ; legislation must be impartial- look impartial, that is; but it was trusted that the discretion of the mag,sti.n,es would protect Europeans. One legislator in the course of the debate regretted that the farmers were not still allowed to shoot down all thieving niggers." The same savage spirit is found in the United States. In constructing that wonderful railroad which completes the union of the Atlantic with the Pacific, the Red Indians inevitably resented the interference with their hunting grounds. The white men were mtruders and enemies, deserving of scalping, torture, and outrage. To the whites, who knew that the P i Vp / '"*^- m 62 ESSAY I. world would not stand still in order to leave un- disturbed the relation of the Red Indian and the buffalo, the barbarous severities of the savages seemed fitly punished by treachery and massacre. One of the servants of the railway proposed in writing, that the troublesome tribes should be exterminated, or so reduced in numbers as to be rendered harmless. "It is a singular thing," says a French author,'25) "that in this classical land of liberty, persons are not so scrupulous as we are in Europe: that violence, if it is found needful, is not repulsive, but is openly practised." The writer apparently does not know that in the Atlantic cities, this unscrupulousness is condemned as strongly as it is in Europe. He goes on to state the ground of his hasty generalisation. " I am of opinion," wrote the engineer "HI vans to Vice-President Durant, "that we must exterminate the Indians, or at least so far reduce the number as to make thorn harmless. To accomplish this wo must war as savages do, and u, o means which lookers on will call barbarous. I am persuaded that in the long run this course will be the most charitable and the most humane." Under the same circumstances, our theories and our sentiments might be much the same : but there- fore the more necessary is a central controlling power, in the hands of men who have not been corrupted by the harsh struggles of life. Ncav England, Pennsyl- vania, Washington, are the natural controllers of the United States : Great Britain is the natural controller of New Zealand and the Cape. Let the older states shut their eyes for a generation, and the Red Indians would cease to be : let Great Britain connive for a '^: THE COLONIES. 53 generation, and the Maories would be annihilated, the Caffres driven away or enslaved. This word enslaved introduces another question of the highest importance : whether slavery and the slave trade would not raise their heads again, if we abandoned our position as the arbiter between Europe and remote nations. It is one of the glories of Great Britain that during the greater part of a century, a large philanthropic party struggled without intermission to put an end to the slave trade and to slavery itself. Sixty years ago the Enghsh slave trade ceased; and from that time we gradually induced other nations to forbid it. After we had attained this end, we made great sacri- fices to support the poHce of the seas : we kept up a squadron on the West Coast of Africa, at a vast cost of men sacrificed to the pestilential cHmate; we encountered the hostility of other nations by enforcing the "right of search:" we bore the sneers of the world, who would not beheve us disinterested, but steadily maintained that we were studying our own interests. At last the old slave trade has almost ceased, and under the new face which Cuba is assuming we may hope that it will cease altogether. ^ Slavery itself, now the United States have done with it, appears to bo doomed. Cuba and the Brazils can hardly continue it against America and England. Now if slavery were an unnatural condition, handed down to us from the middle ages, as a whimsical result of feudalism, we should perhaps hear no more :1 ' «l i 54 ESSAY I. of it. But unfortunately it is the most natural Of all conditions in early stages of social progress. Gibbon "Wakefield pointed out why it is so : he showed that in the presence of illimitable land capable of cultiva- tion, the great difficulty of colonists is to keep labourers continuously in their employment ; and that therefore slavery came naturally in as a means of enabhng capitalists to organize labour. A sugar planter at the critical season may find himself deserted by his hired men, who can easily earn a subsistence by cultivating a plot of land. Even the manufacturers in the northern states, we are told, lament that they are perpetually at the mercy of their men, who can always resort to that confounded land in the West. There is always danger then in new colonies, of a reestablishment of slavery, open or disguised. We find in fact, that it does make its appearance fi'om time to time. I will give two examples. The first occurred at the Cape, in the Transvaal Republic, which is rot an English settlement. In June 18C8, I meet with the following paragraphs.'^' "The Cape Argus says that the slave trade is carried ou to a frightful extent in the Transviuil Eepublic, and that under the guise of the apprenticeship system, which apprenficeship never ceases. Many of the inhabitants of the Transvaid are opposed to these unlawful pro- ceedings, and are anxious to place the country under British rule." The subject came before the Enghsh House of Commons at the opening of our next Parliament. "Mr. R. Fowler drew attention to the systematic enslavement of Kaffir children by the Boers of the Transvaal Republic; and Mr. Monsell, in regretfully admitting the truth of the statements, referred to Mr. if- THE COLONIES. 55 Chesson's able pamphlet on the subject, in which it was suggested that moral pressure would probably be sufficient to put a stop to the shameful traffic, and assured the House that the Government were willmg to do all they could in that direction." I sincerely hope that moral pressure may prove sufficient. But I am convinced that if we left our Cape settlements entirely to themselves, any moral pressure they could exercise, would be despised or resented by the Trmsvaal Republic. It is the recol- lection of the mother country in the background which gives force to such pressure : in the Reform Bill agitation of forty years ago, it was a common saying, that moral force was the shadow of physical force. I fear indeed, that instead of pressing reform on the Transvaal Boers, the unscrupulous men among our colonists would be more likely to imitate them. In one of our Austrahan colonies, Queensland, some- thing too hke slavery has actually come into being of late. So lately as May to August 1869, these passages appeared : " The Sta.idanh^) says that the slave trade, crushed in America, seems on the point of reviving in Australia, owing to the importation of Polynesian natives into Queensland, to work the sugar plantations there. This trade is carried on by ship captains, who are nominally 'emigration agents,' but in reality nothing better than open and atrocious kidnappers. Their practice is to touch at some island where the inhabitants are uncivilized, and cannot speak English, so that they cannot afterwards make known their Avrongs ; to decoy them on board under some pretence or other, and then, after driving or cajoling them below decks, to set sail at once. As many as 90 to 110 have been taken by one vessel in a voyage. In the latter instance 20 out of the 110 died before reaching land. These poor people arc certainly sold in some way or other, for oue captain declared openly that he had lost over £100 b" i'] m » li 56 ESSAY I. the escape of some islanders. Horrible cruelties are perpetrated, as may perhaps be supposed. Naturally enough, a sanguinary retaliation is feared. However, as the missionaries and colonial bishops, backed by an influential section of the colonists and by the greater part of the press, are vigorously stirring in the matter, it is to be hoped that before long either the scandal will be put down, or the serious attention of the Home Government may be drawn to it." This also came before our House of Commons. I find on the 28th June, 1869 : " Mr. Taylor next drew attention to the importation of South Sea Islanders into Queensland, which he denounced as a regular slave trade, the natives being inveigled away or kidnapped by force. Mr. Monsell, admitting that there had been a revival of the slave trade in Samoa and Feejee, contended that the importation of labour into Queensland was placed under special regulations and restrictions for the protection of immigrants. He acknowledged, however, that the regulations were not sufficient ; a serious omission was the examination of vessels by emigration agents. The subject had engaged the earrost attention of the Colonial Office, and strong injunctions had been sent to the Governor of Queensland to do all in his power to secure proper treatment for the immigrants. Mr. Kinnaird, Mr. E, N. Fowler, and Admiral Erskine, insisted that matters were much worse than the Under Secretary tried to make them appear, that immigrants were in fact regarded as slaves and subjected to very cruel usage by their masters. Mr. Adderley took the official side of the question, and deprecated any interference with the freedom of the labour market by a fallacious cry of slave trade." If any reader doubts what the real nature of the trade is, let him turn to the Dalli/ News^'^'^^ of 10th August and 10th December, 1869; and he will there find enough to remove his scepticism. On the 25th of May 1869, Captain Howell of the Young Australian, was put on his trirl, together with one of his crew, charged with the capital oifence of murdering two natives, who found themselves on board his vessel, and violently resisted his authority. Captain s ■m^rmTTfi t wmitmn'i -fM j , THE COLONIES. 57 Howell, who was a humane man, if his witnesses are to be credited, regarded the armed resistance of the natives as a mutiny, and maintained his right to quell such mutiny by force : the prosecutor contended that the resisting natives could not have been guilty of mutiny because they were not legally subject to the captain's authority; and that their resistance was even perfectly lawful, as it took place in defence of their liberty, of which they had been violently deprived. For the prosecution much native evidence was tendered, but it was objected to on the ground that the witnesses were not Christians, and not sufficiently instructed to understand the force of an oath. "A baptised Polynesian, named Josiah, testified that he was in one of two boats, in which a company from the ship went to land on the island. As they were rowing towards the shore, three natives were seen in a canoe, and the order was given to cut them off. The natives, seeing they were pursued, jumped into the sea and made for the shore, but were all caught, taken on board the Young Australian, and sent down into the hold. No longer intimidated there by the firearms which had held them in check on board the ship's boats, they made a fight for their liberties, and were killed in the unequal struggle. This evidence was fuUy confirmed, and the counsel for the prisoners failed to upset it." The captain and his man were found guilty of murder, but the jury strongly recommended them to mercy.'-"' This is not the only known instance. The Da/' y News, in the same article, tells us that early in the yet ■ 1809, the schooner Daphne of Melbourne, entered the port of Levuka, Fiji, where fortunately she encountered H.M.S. Rosarlo, who overhauled her. On board the Daphne were found a hundred natives huddled too-ether, '•^v- ll 1 81 i ii 11-' ' 58 ESSAY I. without anyone wlio understood tlieir language. It was pretended that these naked savages had engaged themselves as emigrant labourers ; but Captain Palmer of the Bosario seized the Ba])hne as a slaver, and set the natives free. I am much disposed to beheve what we are told : that these are not isolated cases, brt that a practice has sprung up of setting sail on piratical adventures, and of carrying to certain colonies captured slaves called by the euphemistic name of emigrant labourers. Can we possibly make up our minds to abandon the task we have so long performed: or to render that task more difficult by letting go the hold we still possess on distant colonies ? How deeply should we hereafter regret our pusillanimity, if after giving up our South Sea possessions, we should find some of them banded together against us to carry on a slave trade, such as that of Cuba, or formerly of Brazil ! As I have said before : the question is not whether all European nations should agree to abandon their present foreign possessions, and to abstain from farther annexations ; it is whether Great Britain alone should adopt this course. Let us set aside Russia and the United States, the two giants which are constantly gathering up fragments of the eastern or western world. France itself is as greedy of distant provinces as we were in our heroic days. The following passage from the Bcmie des deux Mondes,^^'^^ expresses what seems to me the prevailing sentiment of educated France. *4 it THE COLONIES. 59 "If it is easy for theorists to attack the colonial system by com- paring the cost with the profit, men called to the head of a great nation, to whatever economical school they belong, are driven by irresistible pressure to commit those generous prodigalities which do honour to the youth of nations, and profit their maturity. Greece colonized Asia Minor, Sicily, and Italy; Rome annexed the world by manners as well as by arms; and England would now be a nation of the third order, if the intrepid Anglo-Saxon race which occupies two continents, had carried out the recent half-serious theory of isolation. The doctrine of everyone to himself and everyone for himself, is in radical contradiction to the genius of France, to whom expansion is a necessity. Numerous as have been her failures in colonization, her fuith has fortunately survived her deceptions. It is with unanimous applause that the French Government has by a victory opened for us the gates of the Celestial Empire; and it justly reckoned on the appro- bation of all politicians when it planted the national flag between India and Japan at the mouth of one of the greatest watercourses of Upper Asia. The Frenchman who arrives from Europe, after having seen Periin nd Malacca, touched at Aden, at Pointe de Galles, at Sincapore, beholds with unspeakable joy the flag which waves at the summit of Cape St. Jacques, sheltering three millions of men, who are either our subjects or under our protection, whose rights, manners, and interests we have respected, while wo have enlarged the horizon of all. "I do not propose in this place to explain the condition of Cochin China, nor to pomt out its future, as it appears to everyone who knows the fertility of the country and the happy aptitudes of the natives. I lis task has been already acccomplished : but our possessions have an addition m Cambogia, the importance of which is far less understood. Ihe brilliant success of Admiral Rigault de Genouilly at Touranne the happy mspiration which conducted him to Saigon, the decisive victory gained by Admiral Charner at Kihoa, all these exploits are henceforward consigned to our military annals, and are not its least glorious pages. But the world is generally ignorant of the way in which we acquired Cambogia, the necessary complement of a territory to the security of which it was necessary." The periodical from which this passage is taken, represents the highest intellect of France, and may generally be taken as the exponent of the tone and sentiments of the ablest and wisest Frenchmen. Now the exultant spirit on the acquisition of this little ■ I 11 i\ •y 60 ESSAY r. m colony, the rant about glory on a victory over miserable Asiatics, must convince us that if we retire from the stage of colonization, our nearest neighbours will at once take our place. I ask the friends of aborigines and the enemies of slavery, whether they can look with hope at the sub- stitution of France for England as the great colonizing power. The French, you will say, are a kindhearted people: no doubt they are. They are flexible, and easily adapt themselves to new habits : so it is said, though their ill success in colonization suggests a doubt. However, let their kindness and flexibility be what you please, they have not had our long training in the philanthropy which protects the distant oppressed. We have done abroad many harsh and cruel things : but we have a party always ready to cry for retribu- tion : a party strong in tradition, ready with the names of Clarkson and Wilberforce to conjure up a storm against evildoers : a party strong in the Society of Friends, and in the middle classes of society at large. Slavery and the Slave Trade, Oppression of Aborigines, are odious spectres we have fought for a century, in spite of European sneers and calumny: spectres we have vanquished and are ready to vanquish again. The French have yet to learn the lessons wo know so well : shall we commit to their hands a task we can perform and they cannot? Other nations share these French sentiments, and do not understand the scruples felt by Englishmen. We say that wo are in possession of India : that we u THE COLONIES. 61 much fear we had at first no right to be there : but that being there, the best thing we can now do is to govern the country in such a way as to promote the present wellbeing and future civilization of the natives. Show us that we fail in this task and we will retire. Continental public writers take a more peremptory tone : as for instance Moramsen in his History of Borne . An Enghsh critic,'^'* referring to Csesar and his war in Gaul, says that it is one of Dr. Mommsen's many merits that he looks at those great events in the light of a higher philosophy. After boldly laying down the riyht of a State to absorb neighbours still in their nonage (which he illustrated by approving the British conquest of India), he goes on : "The Reman aristocracy had accomplished the preliminary con- dition required for this task (of CjBsar's)-the union of Italy; the task Itself It never solved, but always regarded the extra-Italian conquests cither as simply a necessary evil, or as a fiscal possession virtually beyond the pale of the State. It is the imperishable glory of the Roman democracy or monarchy— for the two coincide— to have correctly apprehended and vigorously realized this its highest destination. . . Though the subjugation of the West was for Caesar so far a means to an end that he laid the foundations of his lattr height of power in the Transalpine wars, it is the special privilege of the statesman of genius that his vieans themselves are ends in their turn. . . . There was a direct political necessity for Rome to meet the perpetually threatened mvasion of the Germans thus early beyond the Alps. ... But even this important object was not the highest and ultimate reason for which Gaul was conquered by CjBsar. ... The Italian homes had become too narrow. . . . It was a brilliant idea, a grand hope, which led OjBsar over the Alps-the idea and the confident expectation that ho should gain there, for his fellow burgesses, a new boundless home, and regenerate the State a second time, by placing it on a broader basis." Mommsen I beheve, is of that German school which worships might, force, success ; and bows down 62 ESSAY I. before heroes. The doctrine set forth in the passage I have quoted is repugnant to the plain sense of justice of Englishmen, as it is no doubt to that of many Gvirmans. We do not behevo that Russia, Austria, and Prussia, had a right to partition Poland because its constitution wap chaotic : nor that Austria would now have a right to seize Roumania because that new country is in its nonage : nor that Hungary could justly take Moldavia and Bosnia because they are vassals of the Crescent. Let us beware of entrusting the high police of the world to those among whom such sentiments of inter- national justice are tolerated. The French and the Germans have been distanced in the race of greatness : they are nationally greedy for empire : they mould their sentiments according to their desires. The Enghsh are satiated with success : their possessions are almost a trouble to them : they can afford to abstain from further increase, and can even desire a diminution. They have nothing to gain by injustice ; their sentiments are unwarped by greed ; they are the natural arbiters of the world. The task is one they must not shrink from, as they desire the well-being of the human race, and value their o^ti continued greatness. HI ' TUE. COLONIES. 68 VI. rrHE defence of existing institutions labours at present J- under a great disadvantage. We have lived in a period of change during half a century. A new liberal foreign and colonial policy was begun by Canning and his friendr : the same party, under the inspiration of Huskisson, adopted the policy of free trade; which the war with France had prevented Pitt from carrying out, and which was to be completed by Sir R. Peel, long after Canning and Huskisson had disappeared. The test and corporation acts have been aboHshed: Roman Catholics have been admitted to ParHament and to high office : even the Jews have been received as brethren. The ^^reat manufacturing towns have got some share of representation: votes have been given to all classes : the ballot is on the point of being granted. To young enthusiasts it seems that no wished for change need be despaired of: to old conservatives, who have been beaten in so many poHtical campaigns, weariness and despondency have taken the place of hope : and they say that with sufficient popular agitation any absurdity may gain acceptance. The Colonies are doomed, say the young men; they will go the way of test acts and protection : the colonies are doomed, say the hopeless conservatives ; the young men are agitating against them. 4 64 ESSAY I. I ■ I H! If i!i <■ It is well to recollect some particulars of our history which have slipped out of sight, and which may teach us that popular agitation, if frequently successful, frequently also fails. First, as to social reforms. All of us concede that drunkenness among many, and excessive drinking among still more, are answerable for a great part of the vice, misery and poverty of the world : since the time of Father Matthew, the teetotallers have agitated incessantly and dogmatically or legislative interference; for Sunday closing of taverns, for altogether prohibiting the retailing of liquors, for permitting towns to forcibly close their taverns : they have not succeeded, and seem even to lose the ground which in America they had gained. Then as to our financial policy. I am old enough to remember the flourishing days of Cobbett and Attwood : when the one applied all the popularity of his Political Register and all the resources of his vigorous EngHsh, to induce his countrymen to repu- diate the National Debt : when the other wielded the Political Union half mad with the carrying of the Eeform Bill, as an instrument for degrading the cur- rency. The National Debt remains, and the currency has not been degraded : nay, no other national debt has so high a credit, no other currency is so jealously guarded. Some political agitations have failed just as igno- miniously. Among the Chartists of twenty to thirty years ago, there Avere certain demands to be absolutely Tin-; COLONIES. 65 insisted on: two of the Hve points wore Triennial Parliaments, and Payment of Members. The classes who constituted the Chartists are now intrusted with votes. Where is the cry for Triennial Parliaments and Payment of Members ? Before the Crimean war, the Peace Society was an important body, and as if its clamour was not loud enough at home, sent a deputation to Russia, to mislead the Czar into the base- less opinion that England would not fight. Where is now the once popular Peace Society? TeototaUism, repudiation of the National Debt, degradation of the currency, triennial parliaments, pay- ment of members, abohtion of war, have all been the subject of popular agitation, and none have been carried. Let young enthusiasts moderate their ardour; let weary conservatives regain hope : we are not at the mercy of agitators : men cannot carry measures merely by the expenditure of a given quantity of talk and printing. Let the friends of the colonies at home take heart to oppose agitation to agitation : let the friends of the mother country abroad take heart, and be assured that no amount of breath and paper will make us willingly abdicate our greatness. My own faith in my conclusions is far more likely to be disturbed, by the counter Biithority of two emi- nent thinkers, the one French, the other English. I wonder that among professors and publicists'^ who liave written against keeping the colonies, this support from authority has, so far as I know, been neglected. F »l f Iv h M'i 66 ESSAY I. The Frenchman was Turgot, the greatest of the Economists, the disciples of Quesnay and Gournay. In 1776, early in the dispute between England and her American plantations, Turgot *^^' was formally con- sulted as to the policy which France and Spain ought to adopt : whether they ought or not to interfere. He discussed the question in writing, and came to the conclusion that France and Spain ought not to inter- fere; no, not even if Great Britain was likely to be victorious. For, said he, if England should succeed in conquering and enslaving her colonies, her hands would be so full of the continual work necessary to hold them, that this would furnish the other great powers with the strongest guarantee against any further British enterprise. Turgot took the opportunity of discussing the colonial system, and of showing, as Adam Smith did in his great work published the same year, how the principles of free trade condemned the system. " Pradent and fortunate will be tliat nation which is the first to adapt its policy to recent circumstances ; which consents to regard its colonies, not as subjects of the metropolis, but as allied provinces! Prudent and fortunate will be that nation which is the first convinced that all commercial policy consists in emplopng its soil in the manner most advantageous to the owners, its hands in the manner most advantageous to the labourers When the entire separa- tion of America has forced the world to recognise this truth, and has corrected European commercial jealousies, there will be one great cause of war the less; and one cannot but desire an event so favourable to humanity." The English writer to whom I have referred, is Jeremy Bentham ; than whom perhaps, no modern writer THE COLONIES. ^7 hap done more to mould the legislation and policy of a great country. Bentham's "Emancipate your Colomes," addressed to the French National Con- vention, is well known. Elsewhere,*^' he takes the same tone. "To confess the truth, I never could bring myself to see any real advan age derived by the mother country, f^m 'anything thate- ever did T", ' v f '^ '* '"" ""^^ ""^^'^'^ *° -«' '^^^ -7 i-tance ever did exist, in which any expense bestowed by government in the planting or conquering of a colony was real/repaid. The good produced by the inhabitants of such new colony cannot be had by the inhabitants of the mother country without befng paid for: and from other countries, or the mother country itself, goods to equal ;alue nZ without any such additional expense, as that of founding maTn aintg and protectmg a colony, be had upon the same terms." ^'^'^'"^°«' Such are the two great authorities I have men- tioned. As to Bentham, he merely refuted the protectionist doctrine by which the founding and maintaining colonies was defended. He neglected all other considerations; having his mmd full at the time of arguments to prove the superiority of his Panopticon gaol as compared with a penal settlement. Afterwards when that longlived Panopticon incubus ceased to oppress him, other elements of the colonizing question presented themselves ; and as Gibbon Wakefield tells us Bentham recanted his early opinions, and was convinced that to found and maintain colonies might be beneficial. Turgot's arguments again, are mostly directed against the doctrines of monopoly and protection. He would convert the colonies into aUied provinces If ho had lived and retained his mental vigour till the present day, he would very likely have reo-ardprl .« 1 is I i» 68 ESSAY I. allied provinces, colonies like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand ; all enjoying state rights, but subject on matters of imperial interest, to the federal authority of the Imperial Parhament. 'No doubt also, his opinions as to the advantages of intimate alliance would have been greatly strengthened, by the invention and adop- tion of steamers, railroads, and electric telegraphs; which have made Quebec more accessible to Londoners than Belfast was a hundred years ago. The proposal to strengthen the alhance between Great Britain and her dependencies, has lately received considerable attention. Happily, it is from the colonies that the cry for increased cordiahty has come : if it had begun here, it might have been suspected of betraying a lust of predominance : if we had talked of an Imperial League, we might have provoked the estabhshment of a Colonial League. The success of the proposal must depend mainly on the degree of attachment between the parent and the offspring. If there is real and deep affection on both sides, an intimate alhance will not be difficult. Now, I am quite certain that Great Britain is warmly attached to those who have carried her name, her language, her manners, and her greatness, through the world. If Canada left us, we should bid her God speed, but we should feel humiliated by the secession : the loss of Australia and New Zealand would be hard to bear : and if any chance should deprive us of India, we should feel that national mourning would be our fit condition : if all these possessions failed us, we THE COLONIES. 69 could only say as Adam Smith did on a similar occa- sion, that we must endeavour to accommodate our future views and designs to the real mediocrity of our circumstances. Still, we have no heart to hold our colonies against their will : as soon as they are fit for independence, let them go if they desire to do so. Do they desire it ? Do they wish to renounce their birthright ? At present, the evidence points to the opposite conclusion. Gibbon Wakefield wrote before we had made those wonderful concessions of independent legis- latures, which have left the colonies nothing to desire as to self-government. He hated the Colonial Office, and was under a temptation to represent that its mis- conduct was exhausting the patience of the colonists, just as the blundering of a century ago did exhaust the patience of the Americans.'^' Yet Wakefield says : "The peculiarity of Colonies is their attachment to the mother country. Without having lived in a colony-or at any rate, without having a really intimate acquaintance with colonies, which only a very few people m the mother country have or can have-it is difficult to conceive the intensity of colonial loyalty to the em,,ire. In the colonies of England, at any rate, the feeling of love towards England, and of pride in belonging to her empire, is more than a sentiment; it is a sort of passion which all the colonists feel, except the Milesian-Irish emigrants 1 have often been unable to help smiling at the exhibition of it. lu what it originates I cannot say." This was written a generation ago. But very lately, another observer. Sir George Grey, spoke in the same style. "He said(35. he was unable to understand a policy which insisted on keeping Ireland bound " " ' • - m '-M d to the empire ngamst the will of the Irish. 70 ESSAY I. H Iv.'J while it said to New Zealand, We are willing to cut you off if you like to go. He had no hesitation in saying that throughout the British do- minions thcrj was an amount of respect for the Queen which no language could describe, and that to be severed from her rule would strike sorrow into all their hearts." Some recent proceedings prove the trutli of these assertions, and illustrate them strangely. I say nothing of the reception of Prince Arthur in Nova Scotia, because that might be only loud Hp-loyalty. But the conduct of certain colonies on a graver occasion, has far more significance. In the spring of 1868, the Duke of Edinburgh, on a visit to AustraHa, was delib* erately shot by a traitor. The angry excitement which followed, was astounding. Even New Zealand, on hearing of the act, broke into a fervour of loyalty.'^' The Sunday after the news arrived, the National Anthem was sung after morning service in every church and chapel of ewery denomination, and monster indignation meetings were held in all the towns to demonstrate their detestation of the outrage. But New South Wales was frenzied. The London Spectator^^''^ made these comments. " Within five days of the atrocious and cowardly attempt on Prince Alfred's life, the two Houses of Legislature passed in one night, through all its stages, a Bill which received the sanction provisionally equivalent to a Eoyal assent t-ie next morning. That legislative act we can call by no other name than one of violent and alarming political delirium. .... It provides that any one proposing a 'peaceful and friendhj separation of these colonies from the British Crown, .... shall he guilty of felony, and be liable to penal servitude for life, or for any term not less than seven years." I cannot doubt then, the truth of the assertions made by Gibbon Wakefield and Sir George Grey: I THE COLONIES. 71 must believe that ardent and unfaltering as is loyalty at home, distance of five or ten thousand miles adds enchantment to the sentiment. With such ardent attachment on the part of the offspring, it will be strange indeed if a brutal dvri-trropy^'^s) should move the mother country to thrust them out of her nest. On that point however, I have no fear. What form our relations to the colonies will take, I do not presume to conjecture. At some recent meetings in London, the following propositions were proposed for discussion, and exhibit a reasonable view of the case as it now stands. " 1. That the colonies are a source of great commercial and social advantage to the parent country, and largely contribute to the influence and greatness of the empire. 2. That on the other hand, the rights of Imperial citizenship, Imperial supervision, influence, and example, and Imperial commerce and resources, promote all the best interests of the colonies ; and that they, on their part, are not wanting in a loyal appreciation of their beneficial relationship. 3. That the practical independence of a representative and responsible local government, latterly conceded to each of the principal colonies alike at their own instance, aud with the ready concurrence of the Imperial authorities, was most certainly never intended to weaken the connection with the parent State, but, on the contrary, to strengthen it by the increased loyalty and contentment arising from a more suitable political condition: and that in this respect this judicious policy has been attended with complete success. 4. That under this new system it is only equitable that these so self-governed colonics should defray entirely their own respective charges; provided always that claims and responsibilities, if any, attaching to the preceding regime be first satisfactorily disposed of; and that this financial independence, has in fact, with very few exceptions, which it may be hoped are only temporarily such, either been already completely attained, or is just on the eve of attainment." 72 III WJ ESSAY I. There follow four other propositions, which are not of such general and permanent interest. Unfortunately, the gentlemen who, with the best intentions, proposed and discussed these resolutions, were altogether without authority from the Colonists whom they seemed to represent. We have since learned that the report of their proceedings has caused much irritation in Austraha: irritation, happily, not against the Government or people of Great Britain, but against the officious members of a self-constituted association. As to the possibility of any strengthening of the ties between us, it would be rash to express an opinion. Portugal'^' admits to its parhaLient a deputy from India: Spain admits deputies from Cuba and Porto Eico. Should we gain anything by imitating this policy, and issuing writs to Canada, the West Indies, Austraha, and India? The Times talks of a federal fleet and army. These proposals appear to imply questions of imperial taxation, our bugbear since the last century, when it cost us a colonial war ending in humiliation. In this as in all legislation, we shall doubtless feel our way cautiously, groping in the dark, until some happy accident or wise induction furnishes a ray to guide us. THE COLONIES. 73 I VII. I HAVE now assigned the grounds of my opinions : opinions formed after many years' careful weighing of the reasoning and declamation of able and consci- entious opponents : opinions as to the soundness of which, I am free from those doubts which often beset one on topics incapable of demonstration. I know that I have with me the hearts of Great Britain, when I set the greatness of the country far above Chancellors' Budgets and Board of Trade Re- turns : I am certain that Englishmen and Scotchmen and many Irishmen, would account it an ignominious bargain, to give our foreign possessions in exchange for a saving of an annual million or two of taxes, or for an annual increase of a few millions in our commerce. Epicurean apathy is not the vice of our islands : our ungenial chmate, our vigorous constitutions, our athletic habits, our traditional Puritanism, make timid prudence repugnant to us. Priests and scholars may preach up the virtues of quietude and asceticism : when there comes a time for action, priests and scholars preach in vain : let the pulpit and the college talk on ; we will act. Modern refinement has not made sybarites of us. We have indeed abandoned our aggressive spirit : we are slow to enter into a quarrel, but being in, we warn I ' 74 ESSAY I. our enemies to beware of us : we will rob no country of its patrimony, but that must be an audacious people which dares to lay a finger on ours. Having this engrained hardihood of character, is it conceivable that after the toilsome struggle of cen- turies, we should spontaneously abandon our empire, narrow our boundaries, and confine ourselves within the httle islands in which we live? We see the Eastern and Westei^x Giants growing daily; and proving that by the help of steam and electricity, a head may guide a body, a hundred times as great as could formerly be controlled : is this the time for us to retire into ourselves, and to provoke the amazement, the pity, and the derision of Europe ? We are not so degenerate as to be indifferent to the extension of our race, of our language, of our manners. Modern Aryans, issuing, not from the depths of Asia, but from the western verge of Europe, we see our destiny to neacefully transform the world : to people two continents ; and perhaps to rescue a third from castes, from idols, from degrading and blood- stained superstitions. Responsibilities follow : struggles with difficulties ; dangers to be confronted; anxieties to be borne. So much the better: it is only by incurring responsi- biHiies, by struggling with difficulties, by confronting dangers, by bearing anxieties, that men and nations continue great : if Hke cowards we recoil from these, we shrink into insignificance. History indeed, has taught us a valuable lesson. pf. THE COLONIES. 76 Our fathers vainly put out all their force to crush their rebellious colonists, whom they had teased into insurrection. "We say to their neighbour!, the Cana- dians and Nova Scotians and islanders of their coasts : form yourselves into a great Dominion; and then, if you desire independence, take it ; if you prefer annex- ation to the United States, have it: if you do not value your birthright, if you are tired of being Enghsh- men, if you long for the stir and corruption of Presi- dential elections, if you expect more ready and certain justice from judges appointed by the people, have your will, we will not coerce you. We let the Ionian Islands go : I hope we shall do the same with Gibraltar, if after mature deliberation we can see sufficient cause. The matter concerns, not us alone, but aU the maritime powers. To us it is a matter of patriotic pride, as well as of naval security : to them, of naval security alone. Let us have an in- quiry in the face of Europe, and invite witnesses of all nations. It might turn out that just as Europe intrusted the Ionian Islands to us, as the nation least likely to abuse the charge, so certain countries, I will not say France, but Russia, Austria, Prussia, the United States, might rather see the key of the Mediterranean in our keeping, than in that of Spain, which might lose it in the first struggle. I earnestly wish that we may find ourselves able without injustice to hold that rock : the trophy of former victorious endurance ; a memorable example to us and our children. As to the suggestion of our abandoning it lest it should 76 ESSAY I. ;■; be taken iiom us, the adviser of such pusillanimity should be hooted dowii I have said tli^it if j national saving of a few millions, and an important extension of commerce, were set together on one side, and the maintenance of our greatness were set on the other, the people would not hesitate to prefer the na+i )nui greatness; just as the people had no hesitation in spending a hundred millions and paying an oppressive income-tax, rati^er than see our military reputation tarnished in the Crimea. But to me it seems demonstrable that little permanent expenditure is required ; since the colonies acknowledge that, except in a few trifling and tempo- rary ca.es, they are bound to pay all their own expenses. But I go much furtliL'*' : I maintain that our foreign possessions are of great pecuniary advantage to us ; in extending our commerce, in promoting our emigration, in supplying us with a field for the employment of our many educated men otherwise condemned to idle- ness. I am convinced that to abandon New Zealand Australia, India, w^ould impoverish us greatly. The colonists themselves do not wish to leave us I have ^hown how, formerly, Gibbon Wakefield witness- ing their overpassionate and inexplicable attachment to the mother country, had often to suppress a smile. Since that experience, an end has been put to the old grievances inflicted by the Colonial Office ; to the for- malities and delays and whims which exasperated our distant fello'v-subjects : all possible independence has been conferred : gratitude has taken the place of irrita- tion in c bet^ wou our the with univ coan So 1 their elev8 greal and enter there and ] minis omn A ^ogr outed India place< the ti threw conqi] testin peoph h '■hi ■"^»9m. THE COLONIES. 77 pusillanimity ng of a few f commerce, aintenance oF people would less; just as g a hundred ic-tax, rati] or shed in the )le that little ) the colonies y and tempo- wn expenses. ; our foreign age to us ; in r emigration, ^ment of our led to idle- ^ew Zetland ^atly. to leave us field witness- j attachnient )ress a smile, ut to the old ; to the for- sperated our )endence has lace of irrita- i tion : oven to propose a separation was hastily made in one colony, a highly penal offence. Most persons agree that we cannot cut the tie between us without the consent of both parties. It would indeed, be cruelly inconsiderate to take from our best friends without their consent, the benefits of the present organization: to refuse to supply them with a Doge; to leave thom to elect their judges by universal suffrage, or to appoint as gaol warders tlie coarse and unprincipled partizans of the v/imiing party. So long as they continue Englishmen, they wiU retain their no^ .e loyalty to a distant island, and their elevating pride in sharing the historical renown of a great country: Hiey will desire to add the gentleness and refinement of an oid civilization, to the stir- and enterprise of a new society. If we cast them off, there may prevail unchecked the coarse vices of small and new republics: the n-de dialect, the slovenly ad- ministration, the bowieknife and revolver, the vigilance ommittee, and Lynch law. As to India, we stand in the place of the Gi eat 'logul : but with higher aims, authority more undis- puted, a better organization. We are conquerors; but India has always been n prey to conquerors. We dis- placed Ihe successors oi Aurimgzebe : we overturned the throne of Ilyder Ali and Tippoo Saib : we over- threw the vast hosts of Holkar and Scindiah: we conquered the conquerors. According to the candid testimony of Frenchmen, our rule is a blessing to the people; and if we err, it is not through a lust of 78 ESSAY I. ilfli M . \ I' annexation, but in still leaving a single native prince to reign and misgovern. If we give up India to the Indians, tliere follows the anarchy of the last century: daring freebooters rising to be princes; hill tribes annually desolating the plains : the Mahometans forcing on the Hmdoos, conversion, tribute, or the sword. Europe has long re- sounded with the groans of Asiatic Christians oppressed by the Turks : our retirement from India would be followed by the groans of Hindoos oppressed by the Moslem. ^ . , , Once more: are we ready to abandon our honourable and long continued crusade against slavery and oppres- sion? Shall we leave the Cape Europeans to shoot down the Caffres ? the Jamaica whites to hang, draw, and quarter the men of colour? the Hindoos and Mahometans to join in grinding down the Santals the Boers to enslave their neighbours ? the Queensland planters to cajole, kidnap, and murder the Polynesians? If we have arrived at that stage in our national hte, when we prefer repose to greatness, quiet enjoyment to noble duties: if we have fallen into Epicurean apathy, not through the pressure of foreign rule or domestic anarchy, but through the weariness and satiety of success : then we shall find that the " canker of a long peace" has been our ruin : and we may earnestly pray for another Louis XIV, or another Napoleon I, to alarm and harass us into activity and health. But if, as I beheve, we are not so corrupted : if the nation is henceforth to be guided by men brought % ive prince )re follows reobooters desolating ) Hindoos, as long re- } oppressed would be 5od by the lionourable md oppres- is to slioot lang, draw, indoos and e Santals ? Queensland Polynesians? lational life, b enjoyment rean apathy, or domestic i satiety of :er of a long irnestly pray )oleon I, to jalth. orrupted: if men brought THE COLONIES. 79 up to labour and endurance, and not by loungers and carpet knights : if a generous sympathy with the weak IS to be the mainspring of our foreign policy: if while we covet nothing for ourselves, we insist that no hi^h handed injustice shall be committed by others : if wo are resolved to apply our maritime predominance to prevent the ruffians and pirates of the world from oppressing and enslaving their neighbours : then we shall certainly rally to the cry, Hold fast your Colonies. WILLIAM LUCAS SARGANT. "7 ^iWW^P^ ■' 80 ESSAY I. Sin ft; / NOTES. (1) p^evue des deux Mondes, 64. 678. (2) M. Martha, Lucrece, 8. (3) Eev. d. d. Mondes, 82, 216. (4) lb., 84, 71. (B^ Statistical Journal. 32, 294. g^, 297. ,6, Merivale, Colomzation, 248. and sta (7) Pall Mall Gazette, Jan. 19, 1»6/, o. (8) lb., Aug. 24, 6. o^^imed bv ns in 1848, and aban- (0, The Orange ^-er Territory was a^^umed by _^^ ^^^^^ ^ ^^^ donedinl854. See Forsyth Cases and P ^^^. ^^^^.^^ ^^ (10) International Policy, pp. 23 & 2U «ot.. European Politics, 1866, o7. (11) Earl Grey on Colonies, 2 1»U. (12) Pall M. Gaz., 15 Dec, 18*^«'/^' (13) Rev. d. d. Mondes, 70, 684-o. (14) -Edin. Rev., July, 1869, 72. (15) Rev. d. d. Mondes, 70, 674. (16) lb., 74, 940. -.Q.o in (17) Pall M. Gaz., 12 Dec, 1868 10. (18) Rev. d. d. Mondes, 80, 1066. (19) Pall M. Gaz., 29 July, 1869, 4. (20) Earl Grey, 1, 14. (21) Pall M. Gaz., 2 Sept., 1868. i. ■:2) Economist, 1158, p. T-"^73. (23) Pall M. Gaz., 24 May, 1869, 1. (24) lb., 21 Aug., 1869, 6\ ,25) Rev. d. d. Mondes 84, 3-5. g. ^- ^t^:lT{mlllfM..Zl 3': 29 June, I860. 2. (27) lb., 14 Dec, iooo, - o. "^ - ^^ac) ,28, Daily News, 10 Aug and ^ ^ec ^-^ .^ ^^^ j,^.^.^^^, m Compare the case, m 1845, ot tne oi Irving Annals, 82 and 88. ,30) Rev. d. d. Mondes, 79, 852. (31) Pall M. Gaz., 30 Jan.. If 7, 10- (32, Turgot, Ed. 1844, IT, ^^^'^t,^^'; goe- Index, 21, Ixi. ,33, Bcntham's Works, Tarts 4, 408: 3. 20b. ma (34) Edin. Rev. 93, 493. (35) Pall M. Gaz., 2 Dec, 18b9, H. ,36) lb., 28 May, 1868, 6. ,37, Spectator, 23 May, 1868, 60. . . ,, _„^c Ed. 1845, 216. .38, Gilbert White's Natural His ory o Selborne, ^ (39, Journal des Econom., Aug. 18b7, ^/J- m i 548, and aban- 869, p. 185. ifi; studies in e, 1869. 2. n the Felicidade : 21, Ixi. :MiM 1. 1845, 216.