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Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la m^thode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 J COLONIAL QUESTIONS PRESSING FOE IMMEDIATE SOLUTION, IN THE INTEREST OP THE NATION AND THE EMPIEE. iapi-s unit gttim BY R. A. MACFIE, M.P., MEMBER or THE ROYAL COLONIAL INSTITUTE. "IN THE MULTITUDE OP PEOPLE IS THE KINa's HONOtTB : BlTT IN THE W*v^ OP PEOPLE IS THE DESTEUCTION OF THE PKINCE." ^ ABVA PETSMI.- 'POETAS INTEABE PATENTES; PATIENTS COLONO THIS GEEAT NATION, WITH BOUNDLESS COLONIES WHICH WOULD EEWa^.^ ENTEBPEX8E AND ABUNDANTLY YIELD THE PEUITS OP ToTl YET 8TTtn« BEFOBE THE WOELD WITH THE SHAMEFUL AVOWAL TIlATnJu J^t AND HEECEIME INFLICT TAXATION UPON HEE POPULATION To '^H^Jr^^rZ TWENTY MILLIONS A~Y.An."-JPro.j.ectu. of }Fork>nJri:"^i;;:iio^^^^^^^^^ LONDON: LONGMANS, GREEN, HEADER, AND DYER. EDMONSTON & DOUGLAS. EDINBURGH. Price One Shilling.] 187L [Postage, Twopence. I AM ANXIOUS THAT, WHIIE THE QTJESK'S DOMINIONS ENJOY EVEETWHEBE THE BLESSING OP TEANQUILLITT, PEOSPEBITT, AND LOYALTY, THEEE SHOULD BE INSTITUTED SUCH A CONSTITUTIONAL CONNEXION BETWEEN THE MOTHEB COUNTBY AND THE COLONIES AS WILL CONSOLIDATE THE BEITISH EMPIEE, AND SUSTAIN ITS PATBiOTiSM, STBENOTH, AND POWER. — Candidate's Printed Address to Electors of Leith Bwrghs, 1868. {Fro7n the "■ Leith Herald" September, 1868.) " I will proceed now to state my viows on the great questions that occur to my mind, although, perhaps, they do not assume in the popular view all the importance I assign them. I will speak of the British Empire as a whole. I look upon the face of the globe, and I find this is the day of great Empires. We have near us the great Empire of France, and a little further distance away the newly-con- stituted great empire of Germany. We have beyond that the great Empire of Russia; and we have, more formidable still, the great nation of the United States of America. (Hear, hear.) Now, if the United Kingdom is to maintain its ground — to stand on an equal footing with these great Empires — I think we must not forget that it is necessary to maintain our magnitude also. We are possessed of vast territories, but, for good or for ill, these territories are widely scattered over various parts of the world. We are not so compact as any of these four Empires I have mentioned. Well, if we cannot be compact by being one great land, we may be compact by means of coidial unions between Britain and her Colonies. (Loud cheers.) The British people, as a nation, have done, I believe, most ample "ustice to the Colonists that have left our shores and settled in our valuable territories ; but we have;, as I apprehend, been too generous or too confiding. We have not stipulated, in return for the protection we afford them — for the powers we have conferred upon them — that these favours shall be at all reciprocated, by furnishing a fair quota of the men and part of the money that may be necessary for defonce, and perhaps to fight the battles of the Empire. (Cheers.) Nay, we halite been so extremely libenvl that, wliilst we have removed the protection in which they formerly revelled, we have allowed them to institute a new kind of protection injurious to ourselves. Their own mnnufactures they protect, and they exclude, by high duties, the manufactures of the Mother Country. (Hear, hear.) It appears to mo the time has come v:hen we ought to cousohdote the British Empire, and unite this country and these Colonies by some system of federation, or some system of union, so that the great mass then will work together and act together, they and we finding the common fund of men and money requisite for Imperial purposes, and thus removing all prejudice that might exist in our mindi against them. (Cheers.) Happily, this is a favourable time for seeking such a ' \ ]V KXTRACT FROM ADDRESS AT LEITII. reform. All tlio Colonics are in a state of the most satisfactory eon- tcntuiont, witli one exception — that exception is Xova Scotin, which has no jirejndicc against the Mother Country. . . . My niiiul now naturally turns to the great question of Emigration, for which these territories offer a most wide field. Now, I must at once say that I deplore the extent to wliicli the ports of Loith and Liverpool are made the channel for banishing from our lands to many thousands of our fellow-countrymen — our most vu1na1)le fellow-sul)j'M;ts. (Hear, lieur.) I believe, however desirable change of residence may be for the emigrant, that it is not required by over-population that any leave our own country. I believe that by an amendment of the land laws we could maintain on our soil, thriving and blessed under God, double the ])opulation that now occupies the acres of our country. (Loud cheers.) The calculation has lately been made as to what is the value of the article we bestow when wo send a man abroad. Take the cost of production — the mother's cure in his youth, liis mainte- nance, his education, and his training in early life — and £100 would not pay the value of the gift we bestow on our Colonies when we send forth an able man.* Then that iJlOO, itself a producer, is invested in such a way that it may bring forth twenty, sixty, or one hundred- fold. Now, much as I value the connexion that subsists bct^veeu the United Kingdom and the States of America, I tell you we are hurting ourselves deploral)ly in taking active measures to send away these most valuable workers. One distinction, I think, is drawn between the emigrant to the Colonies and the emigrant to the United States. The latter never returns. He becomes for ever, not merely expatriated, but the citizen of a foreign country. The former frequently comes back ; and while he remains in the Colonies he feels that he is a British subject, and he maintains his loyal allegiance to the Crown of his country. (Cheers.) How much, then, ought wo to prefer that our emigrants should flow in the direction of the Colonies, where they will be equally welcome as in America, and where they may soon become proprietors of land. That brings me back to tho importance of uniting the Colonies to the Mother Country so thoroughly that we can still claim their services, and still reap the benefit of the emigrants' muscles and cordial good-will, and not lose their patriotism, for which I am sure they will become daily more remarkable." (Cheers.) — Extract from Mr. Macfie^s Address at Leith. * The productive value of a man may more truly and ajipreciatively be reckoned £500. The reader will excuse such a way of exhibiting a value that is inestmahle. (See page 9L) PllEFATORY NOTE. The Extracts wliicli precede, and the Object in view, will, the writer trusts, justify publication of the Papers which follow, notwithstanding imperfection of style. In the language of the produce marker, they are ex- posed all-faults. Questions connected with the relation between the United Kingdom and the Colonies are now much better understood, and receive much more attention than was the case even so late as two years ao-o' Hardly any of the published or spoken addresses ""at the last general election touched on them. If ^ve do not misread - Ilansard," the whole subject was ignored m both Houses of Parliament in the session of TsGS-i) Not so last session. Still, the course taken by Go- vernment was regarded as not satisfactory by a growing number of members on both sides. The reign of absolute indiflerence is now past. Were It otherwise, recent movements in the Australian Lolomes would constrain our earnest attention ; pro- minent among which is the fact that a Eoyal Commis- sion, or Select Committee, at Melbourne has, by a majority, proposed that the British ParKament should be asked to sanction some relationship to the Mother Country, or rather to the Sovereign only, that Avould VI PREFATORY NOTE. entitle a contemplated Union to make treaties and be engaged in war, " as may to tlie Colonies seem wise and expedient" — tliat is, without regard to the in- terests or the will of the rest of the Empire ; or, plainly, in practical disconnexion therefrom. The writer does not attribute the highest import- ance to the recent speech at Boston of General Butler, nor to the still later Presidential Address. But the threat these hold out of non - intercourse, fore- shadows more or less remote probabilities, and in- dicate belief, fostered, one is afraid, by observa- tion of ugly facts, that undue concern for the main- tenance of trade and manufactures is a snare and a danger to Britain. Why should the British people longor so exclusively cultivate and depend on manu- factures and trade, as to give ground and encouragement for inimical or hostile treatment ? Are we not disre- garding the manifest interests of the United Kingdom and of the whole Empire, — and the o^)portuni..ies, the duties, and the career, which possession of invalu- able and almost boundless territories of our own, where the British and Irish peasant, more prosperous than at home, would be gratefully loyal to our Queen and institutions, unequivocally present and press upon us, — when we abstpJn from considering the best means of welding the Colonies to one another and to ourselves as a Unitas Fratrum ? Why, in thdse times, when the air all around is surcharged with electricity that may bring the pealing and pelting thunderclouds of war over our heads, do we neglect the ready and noble means which union with such a hardy PREFATORY NOTE. Vll i i and attached population as the Colonial "vvould insure for the raising of additional forces and acquiring addi- tional power of resistance ? Is there not confidencG in the Colonists that they will discharge the duties, and fulfil zealously the responsibilities, that w^ill devolve on them when admitted to their just and equal rights including in these a fair share of the government of that ancient and loyal Empire whose honour, and strength, and union they, like ourselves, fondly and proudly seek to maintain and promote ? To illustrate by fresh cases, is it reasonable, is it prudent, to part with any portion of the British terri- tory — foi instance, a naval station like the Gambia, which the Cape route, likely to become again our most reliable one to the East, renders, some tell us, invaluable — without consulting the Colonists, not even those Avhose trade with the Mother Country is con- ducted along its shore ? Or to prosecute the great work of devising a naval and military system, and making and manning fortification? (that are demanded by threat- enings, whose origin, ground, and motives, being im- perial and national, are as much their concern as ours), without affording them the means and the satisfaction of jointly deliberating on, directing, and. influencing the nature and extent of these defences, and the de- cision of such a question as peace or war ? Is the Empire to be bereft of its most populous and populable parts because the rulers of the United Kingdom have other cares to occupy their minds ? Is no endeavour to be made to avert the evil ? When will there be a more convenient iseason ? Vlll PREFATORY NOTE. Success would be tlio crowning triunipli of* a Premier who knows what is due to the people. The nobles and the masses alike wait not without deep anxiety liis action ; continued non-action is predi- cable failure — foreseen 2)artition of the Empire-trust. To the Papers read before the Social Science As- sociation are a])pended two letters on the same sub- ject; and extracts from Dr. Lang's new Book in favour of Colonial Independence, and from the latest Keport on Emigration. If the present hrochure should reach that venerable gentleman's eye, may it lead him to consider whether the via media is not tatissima. Before leaping into the gulf of separation, v/henco there can be no harking back, why not " trust and try ; " — trust the rest of the nation, which he professes to love nmch, and try if those are not in the right who said a nobler aspiration and a greater and better future than he aims at will be found in In- dependent Confederation ? It is aprojyos to add that a similar appeal may fairly be made to the statesmen at home who look with complacency on Separation. First, do they con- sider that if their ideas and anticij)ations should prove to be a mistake, and if consequently the greater Colonies are encouraged or allowed to go, there are not now any other unoccupied territories to be had on the globs for British colonization ? Secondhj, even if they are not too much afraid of the difficulty of holding Canada in the V , ent of troubles with the United States (of whose principle and practice they think disparagingly), why speak and act so as to generate disloyal and bad feel- ing in Africa and Australia ? PREFATORY NOTE. IX Probably, wlicn the subject of Federation is pro- posed, our Irish neighbours may take advantage of the occasion to delineate their scheme for giving back to that chronically complaining country a Legislature of her own. Well, the people of England and Scotland, though they at present fail to see its practicability and promise of good, will look at the scheme without ad- verse prejudice, and would be happy if the consequence prove advantageous to her or to her and them. The reader will find a passing allusion to our too little observed deficiency in national spii'it. It is a significant fact, and the fons et origo malorwm, that, whereas there has long been a United Kingdom, and in spite of our ha* mony and unity of feeling, we are, not only at home, but over the world, anything but a united people. We call ourselves English, Scotch, and Irish, but not Bntish, although, indeed, this last word, in spite of its inappropriateness, the children of the great Islands are obliged to use, for want of any other, when they mean to indicate that ccjmon nationality which exists, and which ought now to be cherished and made more palpable and pervasive, more eno ir- ing and binding and stimulating. We should feel, and speak, and act everywhere as one]people. Nationalism is in the ascendant abroad. On the Continent it is wisely cultivated and trained as a matter of State policy. We, Briton-Irish or Anglo-Celts, have an indisputable and fertile ground whereon to plant and uprear ours. " Germania," or the German race, has surprised mankind by the vigour and number and I 6-i- X PREFATORY NOTE. effects of its new national songs. Has the Poet Laureate, whose epic has so nobly prepared tlie public mind, struck the first note in Court circler? How many popular muses will join in concert, anrl the in- spiriting '- peaceful notes prolong ? " AsHFiELD Hall, 21^^ Dece,rJjer, 1870. CONTENTS. Notes on Colonial a^hd Imperial Policy : A Paper read before the Association fo"" Promoting Social Science, at Newcadle-upon-Tyne, 1870. PAGE The Colonial Question not a Party one 1 Constitutional Changes are Required ...... 1 Object to Promote Stability and Interest of Empire ... A What the "Empire "is 1 *' The Mother Country " 1 The Celtic Element, and Service it renders .... 2 Queen and Parliament Act and Legislate for whole British Dominions ......... 3 British Sway is Mild and Confiding 3 The Transfers of Invaluable Productive Lands ... 3 Those Transfers should have been under Conditions ... 3 Conditions were Implied . 3 *' Nation" comprehends all at Home and in Colonies . . 4 Facilities for Settlers an Imperial Concern .... 4 Emigration to Colonies, not Foreign Countries, the Nation's Interest 4 In Colonies Emigrants augment Nation's Wealth and Strength 4 Manufacturing and Trading Pre-eminence is Unstable . . 6 British Consumers far more Beneficial than Foreign . . 6 Manufacturing Prosperity depends on Increased Consumption or New Markets 6 Trade tends irrepressibly towards Increased Oper..tion3 . . 6 Dead-locks and Crises inevitable in Commerce .... 6 Farming has no such Drawbacks ...... What is the Permanent Product of our Trading Ascendancy ? . 6 Statesmen neglect Agrlcultm-al Development .... Q Agriculture would make Population overflow into Colonies . 7 Causing remarkable Prosperity and Population ... 7 W^hile Britain free from Dangerous Classes .... 7 Policy points to Land-Cultivation in Colonies .... 7 This would lead to Greater National Independence ... 8 And Complete Harmony between United Kingdom and Colonies 8 Grand Field for Reciprocative Supply and Demand ... 8 Formidable Danger of Persisting in Indifference ... 8 Xll CONTENTS. Aggi'andizenient of otlier Nations Their Advantages not Superior to our Own Concessions to Colonies Necessitate Progress in same Direction SystematiseJ Emigration a Boon Conferrible or. Colonies . Population and Cajjital should be Diflused over the Empire National Spirit must be Cherished ..... Other Nations show us an Example ..... The Colonial Office might be Ro-Pormed .... Functions of Royalty and Nobility ..... Anciently the Nobles discharged Public Responsibilities Division of Great Estates and Exchange of Lands for Colonial Colonial Orders of Knighthood fall Short . . . . Etjuality of Subjects must bo Principle of British Rule "Mother of Nations "an Objectionable Name . United Kingdom is a " Mother of States " . . Rendering lil^e Allegiance ....... Comparison of Colonies to Children In ^pt .... They and United Kindom are Brothers who are Partners . The Capital — viz., Lands — held^for Behoof of Family or " Firm Self-Government now Enjoyed by Principal Colonies . They have Equal Inteiest with us in Good Government of Empire ......... From Participation in which they cannot longer be Excluded Experience and Observation show their Participation Required Business of Colonies at Home now Done Unsatisfactorily . More Sympathy and Leisure Required at Colonial Oifice . Representation in Parliament would not Serve . A Colonial Board Representation in the British Cabinet Insufficient An Imperial Cabinet or Council solves Difficulties Only other Alternative is Disruption of Empire Parliamentary Negligence and Careless Expressions of Statesnaen Letter from CaHac^tt showing Apprehensions of Severance . " Annexationists " Abandonment of Canadian Fortresses .... Promised Assistance in case of War ..... Congress at Melbourne, and tendency to Independence Independence compatible with Confederation Lessons from the Growth of other Nations . . . A Nation's Power Proportionate to its Population Tenure of India stands connected with Retention of Colonies Isolation of Portions of Empire is Strength as well as Weaknesi A Strong Power is usually at Pea j Avith other Nations Advantage of Harbours and Depots in Colonies . . Cosmopolitanism of Free-trade must not be AbuHed . The Feelings of Coloi.ien must be Regarded . . . TAOE 9 9 9 9 10 10 10 10 11 13 12 12 12 12 13 13 13 13 13 14 14 14 14 15 15 15 16 16 16 ir 17 18 18 18 18 19 19 19 20 20 20 20 21 21 21 CONTENTS. Xlll OMIC otion Foreign and Colonial Trade . . , . Advantage of Possessing Unoccupied Territories. Growing Strength of a United Empi'-e Good Understanding with the United States Vision of Nearer Relations wi^h United States. Firm Resolution to Maintain Colonial Relations Consultation with the Colonies .... Defences of the Kmpire ..... Cannot bo Arranged by Correspondence . Council of the Empire Feeling in the Colonies .... The United Kixgdom and the Coloxirs oxe Autox Empire : A Papir read before the Association for the Prom of Social Scien'ie at Bristol, 1869 .... Comparative Strength of Great Nations The Great Trust Committed to Britons Agriculture versv.x Manufactures .... Emigration not Pursued on Sound Principle Concessions to Colonies have Conciliated . Their Equality Avith the United Kingdom Wolcomod . Amalgamation of Interests Value of British Co nexion to the Colonies The United Kingdom must Show itself Worthy . The National Debt should be Reduced Sufficient Defences must be Maintained .... Tho Rights which the United Kingdom has in the Colonies Responsibilities and Duties of the Peerage. Advantage of Colonial Element in London. Misuse of the Word " Imperial " . . . . Letter to a Prominent Member of the Cabinet. Evil of Deferring Consideration of the Colonial Question The Recent Congress at Melbourne .... Independence meant is Disintegration of the Empire . Federation of the Empire Our Position compared with that of Foreign Powers . Implied Condition to Maintain Waste Lauds for tlie Purposes of Emign* ion . Proposal for a Convention of Delegates Lktter to the Times • • • • • « Extracts from Melbourne Newspaper .... Extracts from Montreal Newspaper .... Dangerous Declarations by the Government Regarded in light from the Edinhiunh Review . page 22 23 24 24 25 20 26 27 27 28 28 30 30 31 32 33 34 34 35 35 35 36 37 38 39 40 40 41 41 42 42 43 43 44 44 45 45 46 47 48 XIV CONTENTS. ii'l: Dr. Langh New Book, " Tlie Coming Event " Deputations from the Colonies Proposed Extract prom a New Zealand Newspaper . Extract from Report of the Victoria Commission Remarks made by the Fall Mall Gazette . . . Mutual Affections of Canada and the Mother Country Extract from the British Colnmbia Gazette Very slight Recognition of the Mother Country . Letter from Captain Colomb on Coloniai. Defences Canadian Defences ....... Lines of Intercommunication by Sea Strates;ic Points . Defences of whole Empire must be Considered Together Author of "Friends in Council" on Unification and Federa tion, and a Council ..... Clippings from Dr. Lang's New Book . Status quo of Colonial Question not Satisfactory . Pleas in Favour of Independence The Mother Country's Alleged Consent The Object Dr. Lang has in View The Intor-Colouial Conference in Melbourne An Incorporating Union of Seven Provinces Protectorate over Figi hinges on Independence Talk about Annexation to United States or Germany Dr. Lang^s Definition of a Colony . . , Which are the British Colonies ? . . . The Object of Colonization .... It is Britain's Duty to Colonize . . , , General Ignorance on the Colonial Question Bad System of Governing Colonies has Passed Away They Aspire to be Nationalities Improper Views on Allegiance to the Queen " The Colonies have Reached their Majority" . Correction of a Common Misapprehension . The Views of Mr. Wah'field as to Love of England United Kingdom does not wish to Dominate over Colonies Confederation " The Empire is likely to bo Dismembered " " The United Kingdom has been Ambitious and Proud " Unwarranted Expressions Emanating from the United Kingdom British Public is not Prepared to Sanction a Disintegrative Policy Grecian Colonization And Boman PAGE 48 49 49 50 50 50 51 51 52 53 64 64 65 66 57 57 57 58 68 58 59 59 60 60 61 62 62 63 63 *63 63 U 64 65 65 65 66 66 66 68 68 A\ f\ M Al d\ d\ r| oj o] b1 CONTENTS. XV PAOB 48 49 4» 60 60 60 61 61 62 63 64 64 66 66 67 5r 57 68 68 58 59 59 60 60 61 62 62 63 63 63 63 34 64 66 65 65 66 66 Ik after American Colonization ...... Favouia Union rather than Disintegration . Manner of Dealing with Waate Lancia by United States A Quotation from Grotixis Dr. Adam Smith on the Relationship of Colonies Dr. Benjamin Franklin on the same .... Kesolution of the American Congress .... Opinion of Jeremy Bentham ..... Opinions of Mr. Merivale and Mr. Carlyle . Britain Alleged to Lave Received Cc>mpensation for Planting Colonies .......... A Great Mistake in the Author's Views .... " Independence is Claimed Irrespectively of Compensation " Mr. Wakefield again Referred to "Colonial Interests must not bo Compromised " "United Kingdom is Hampered by its Heavy Debt." Mr. WakeficlVs View as to Prestige Controverted. Works of Earl Grey and Sir George Leiuis .... Advantages which Colonies Confer on the Mother Country Those which Colonies Receive from the Mother Country . The Value of Trade with the Colonies .... Sir H. Parnell Reckons Unwarrantably on same Trade Separation . Alleged Advantage of the Separation of the United States questioned ....... " Emigration the Grand Question of the Day " . " "Waste Lands Belonged to the Mother Country " . " It was a Mistake to Alienate Them " Undue Flow towards the United States Anti-Immigration League and Sentiment in A ustralia There Ought to be a Bonus to attract Emigrants Valuable Parliamentary Return on Waste Lands Negotiations Regarding Australian V/aste Lands and Emigration Charge of Mismanagement by Unconditional Transfer Australians would yet pay "Tribute" to Promote Emigration The Act 18 and 19 Victoria, cap. 54 Lord Enssell ......... Mr. Fronde's Indignation at Transfer of Lands . How Dr. Lang Persuades the Colonists to seek Independence Alleged Advantages to the United Kingdom and the Colonies Great Britain must Dictate Terms when conceding Separation Dr. Lang's too sanguine Expectation as to Australian Federation The Abortive London Conference .... Opinions of Earl Grey and Duke of Manchester . A Council to Supersede the Colonial Office FAQE 69 70 71 71 71 72 72 72 73 73 74 74 74 73 75 75 75 76 76 77 77 77 78 78 78 79 79 79 80 80 80 81 81 81 82 82 83 83 84 84 84 84 XVI CONTENTS. Sp..c„ o. Lon,. S.,™„,i„ F„„„„f Confedoralion of «,e Empto EePORT op „m EMrOEWIO!, COMMBSIONBE, ■ _ Mortality in Stcamsliips . Total Emigration, 1847 09 ' ' ' * ' * Ijvrgo Sum Contribnte.; from Private Sources ' " ' The same m Queensland ... * Table of Emigration in 1870 '''••• Americans find too rpnrJv P«c„ x' ,, .' ready Responses to their " Wilings Away " PROCEEBmoS OF THE RoVAL CoLOXIAL I:.«TITUTE -Mr Wnj garth on the Feelings and Position of the Colonies Extract of a Lettek from Cai^ada An Illustration and Warning from Glasgow Index . PAGE 85 85 85 8G 8G 87 87 87 88 88 88 88 88 89 90 91 91 91 92 93 95 96 07 IMPERIAL AND COLONIAL POLICY. A PAPER READ BEFORE THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE PROMOTION OF SOCIAL SCIENCE, AT NEWCASTLE- UPON-TYNE, 1870. The subject which I brines under your notice is, happily, not a party one. It is, undoubtedly, a field on which there has been some conflict of opinion ; it may soon be a battle-ground on which parties, with opposing projects, will meet in earnest combat; but both sides will contend "in the Queen's name." The contest may be vehement, but it will be conducted with the ardour of loyalty to the same Crown, and with the aims of a common patriotism. Let us hope and strive that the public mind then may be found so enlightened and so leavened with sound principles, that the only issue to be tried shall be, what policy and what constitutional changes (for to these we may look for- ward) will most conduce fco the ptubility, the pros- perity, and the influence of the Empire. What, I here ask, is " the British Empire " ? Rather awkwardly, we have the Queen designated " Empress of India," and we speak of " the Indian Empire." But there are not two Empires under Her Most Gracious Majesty's sway. Still less are the British Islands, though in Boyal Speeches and official language the expres- sion may have been ventured, the Empire. No ; these. Great Britain and Ireland, are " the United Kingdom," and *' the Empire " includes, along with " the Mother Country," the Colonies and Dependencies thereto belonging. THE CELTIC ELEMENT. The " Mother Country," I have said : it is an en- dearing name, and well expresses the regard and reverence in which the soil from which the Anglo- Saxon race have sprung, and to which our affections cling, is held by her many children scattered abroad. "What a magic there is to Southrons and Hibernians in the names, " Old England !" "Ould Ireland !" If Cale- donia, with her mountains and her floods, has no such adjectival prefix usually attached to her venerated names, it surely does not indicate want of feeling, but only undemonstrativeness, on the part of Sawnie and Donald. Pardon me, Donald and Brother Pat, for using the term " Anglo-Saxon." Perhaps the better designation is " Anglo- Ce/^," for we do not forget the sev^eral nationalities and races whose blood has been commingled in the vigorous and vivacious population of the realm. This intermixture inspires in our breasts through you a sentiment of kindred with the men of other European stocks, who have been absorbed or merged within our Colonies, or with whom, aliens dwelling in foreign countries, we are brought into relations by diplomacy and commerce. None will question that the object — the true and noblest object — of British policy, in reference to the Colonies, is the stability, the prosperity, and the in- fluence of the Empire, not of the United Kingdom only. It would not be fair or generous for the British Cabinet or the Parliament of the United Kingdom to govern the Empire and frame its laws, with a view to home interests only or chiefly. The Queen is the 1 'n COLONIES ARE TREATED WELL. 3 and the in- dom "i Queen, not of a part of the Empire, but of the whole. The Parhament rules and legislates for the Colonies, over which the Three Estates are by constitution su- preme pro bono puhlico in the widest sense. Certainly tliis sway has been exercised most mildly, and considerately, and confidingly. Think of the self- government that has been oflPered to the Colonies, and of our statesmen's abstinence from interference in their domestic concerns, and of the rareness with which con- trol has been exercised and demands made or even explanations asked hence. These communities know and feel that ^ney are free, like and along with our- selves who are at home. Think, further, of the transfers made, without equi- valent and without condition, of millions on millions of productive lands. That was implicit confidence indeed ! It might have been wiser and better for all parties if these lands had either not been transferred, or had been transferred upon some distinct condition that they should be promptly let oi' sold, or turned to account in the ways most likely to promote the wel- fare of the whole people, and not merely of the per- sons who have already settled or will settle there, and, in particular, that they should be as easily as possible obtainable by immigrants. However that may be, two things are obvious — that the Government and Legislature of the Mother Country transferred these territories on an implied, though necessarily unexpressed, understanding that the Colo- nial connexion is indissoluble ; and, further, that what the Mother Country, almost unsought and altogether B 2 4 FACILITIES FOR SETTLIXO. urn I without a price, gave, she relied on the Colonists beinor ready to dispose of in such a manner as to attract thither her surplus population ; for this nation, which still realizes the blessing or command, '' Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth" — the nation, by which term we mean the whole people, wherevej in the wide world located — had a right to expect this return. It is not to the nation, especially not to the masses, a matter of indifference and unimportance whether un- occupied lands are available or unavailable on easy terms for settlers. If the terms are high and difficult to comply with, the greater nearness, compared with Africa or Australia,, of the United States, the supe- riority of that country's climate, compared with the climate of Canada, and the facilities afibrded in the States or in Southern America, will, as in the past, so, most surely, in the future, turn the stream of emi- grants away from the destination which otherwise they would choose, and which we and they, on the strongest and most irrefragable grounds, prefer. Every man who leaves our shores for the Colonies, there to farm, goes to increase the population, and the wealth, and the strength of the Empire. Every man who leaves for the United States is a subtraction from our numbers, and, per contra, becomes a producer of Avealth and an accumulator of power for them instead of for ourselves. True, he will still be a consumer of British and Colonial wares, even on alien soil. He will be so, perhaps, for his life -time (in years of peace), but not to anything like the extent which could be predicated of him if he continued a British subject. COMMERCIAL PRE-EMINENCE UNSTABLE. the of ;ead sr of He ,ce), be M Beware of the conceit that the people of the United Kingdom, or the manufacturing and trading portions of us who export— a comparatively sma'l section — will continue able for the future, as in the past, to under- sell other countries from this as " the workshop for all the world." Act not on the assumption that there will be no serious obstruction to trade from wars or hostile tariffs. Besides : the tailor, cobbler, and grocer — for they and such like, and not the employes in huge factories, are the staple of our industrious non-agricul- tural population — will tell us they know too well by experience that every expatriation of a neighbour is, even during peace, their unmixed loss. But, whether well or ill founded the assumption of perpetual superiority, or expectation of such perpetual commercial superiority as is looked for by many, it is ab- negation of national independence, and courting national dangers, to act on it. Consider for a moment what, in the most favourable circumstances, is involved in " manufacturing for the world," and in the pursuit of manufacturing prosperity. According to the nature of things, in order to maintain such prosperity there must be either continual increase of consumption on the part of persons or peoples who are already customers, or else continual opening of new markets : for this reason, that every success and every improve- ment in mechanism leads to increase of operations and of output in existing establishments, and neighbours' observation of success, and the hiring off of clerks and partners who set up for themselves, lead, with the same certainty, to the formation of additional establish- 1 n- 6 FARMING THE BEST EMPLOYMENT. mcnts, which in their turn will in like manner enlarge. Now it is not possible there can be kept up for a long series of years the requisite progression. There must be occasional deadlocks, and consequent distress ; and at some point a final stop. • How different the case of farmintj ! If the farmer is prosperous, he begins to cultivate better than he did, and so produces more food ; but he treads not in- juriously on his neighbour's domain. He is not much wont, or much tempted, to venture on ambitious ex- tensions. If his success encourac^e an additional num ber of persons to engage in the business, they must either set about reclaiming waste land at home, or go abroad, where, while producing more, they are at the same time, by the employment of more labour and the uprearal of industrious families of their own, raising up consumer's for their crops. This further, at any rate, is palpable : there are, with tillers of the ground and producers of animal food and wool, no sudden and overwhelming crises and times of disaster, such as shut up mills, and silence forges, and compel thousands of industrious hands to pine in idleness on the streets. Has the nation cause to boast of the choice it has made in time past? What will be the verdict of posterity 1 What is the permanent product of our as- cendancy in manufactures and commerce, of its alluring splendour and its refined luxuriousness ? During the last half-century British statesmen had two grand openings lor the profitable occupation, within the realm, of our increasing population and capital — employment in manufactures, shipping, and mines, and. roiiEiGN tra.de has its evils. employment in afjcrieulturo and fisheries. They have persistently preferred the former, to the neglect, in a very great measure, of the latter — the stabler and the better of the two. If they had shown the same ardour to find outlets for the yearly increase of our people in this last direction, as they have in the former, farms at home might possibly not have been competed for so keenly, or taken on terms so inconsistent with the in- terests of tenants ; and wages for labour on the land might have been dearer ; but the Colonies would ere now have surpassed the Mother Country in population, and that population, transferred and rapidljr uuiltiplied, would be wealthy, far, far beyond their actual ex- perience or most flattering dreams ; v hile she would contain within her borders far fewer paupers, far fewer of the dangerous classes and the down-draughts, who are our reproach and our loss, and Avho, if we allow the more worthy portion to hive off, leaving tlie infirm and the dregs, may be our ruin. It is time, high time, for our rulers, for the people, to awake. Tell us why we should not devise and do now, at length, what it v/ould have been wise and well we had been doing all through the last half-century. Why not bestow on agriculture, especially in the Colonies, at least as much attention and thought as the genera- tion before us bestowed on manufactures and trade ? Extension of employment so obtained will not be chequered and checked by disastrous strikes and locks- out. It will be less fluctuating and more remunerative than that in gigantic manufactories ; its supplanting which would make us infinitely more independent, for 8 RECIPROCAL GOOD OFFICES. then we need not fetter ourselves with embarrassinor treaties. We would be able to arrange our fiscal systems, and pursue our diplomacy, without unmanly granti ^ or mean cringing for commercial and other favours. We would not practise nor require, for trade sake as is falsely supposed, to defend the queer neu- trality which supplies one of two belligerents with coals for his fleet and Chassepots for his armed citizens. The millions would be m.c re contented, because more thriving, more healthy, and more happy. The relations between the home and the outlying portions of the Empire would be brought into liarmony more complete and sweet. Never has there been a grander area for the recipro- cation of the good offices which supply and demand play in the Divine economy of the world. What the Colonists want is men to cultivate theii- virgin soil. These we can give. What the old country wants is land. That we have enabled the Colonies to give. What a host of healthy, sturdy, loyal subjects might our good Queen soon so have ! If, unfortunately, the next thirty years shall be uiin).arked by any definite policy in this hopeful direction, what will become the position of our country ? Her millions, sunk beneath burdens of taxation ryndered all the more oppressive because the busiest and the best of her sons have bid her adieu for ever, will find themselves yearly less and less able to maintain their struggle with foreigners, who will yearly more and more obtrude themselves into the very shopkeeping and minor trades even of our own cities, towns, and villages. Our national FURTHER CLAIMS OF COLONIES. wledge of the extremities of the Empire so intuitive, that the addition of these counsels and the infusion of new vigour would not tend to a better system of rule ? Whether or no, besides, the amount of work which all departments of Government and both Houses of Parliament have to face and scamper through (or scamp) is such, that it has practically come to this : the considering of Colonial questions and advising with the Colonies has almost fallen into com- plete abeyance. During the last few sessions of Parlia- ment, how very little time has been bestowed even on the important subjects of this paper ! How difficult has it been to find time for them ! How have they, when actually brought forward, been slurred over ! What sympathy has been shown Colonists at the Colonial Office ? How much leisure has the Colonial Minister been able to give for free and easy conning over and communing on Colonial affairs ? Is there any rational ground to hope for a healthier state of things in the future ? None. The experience and the anticipctcion of Colonists, even with regard to matters that come under their cognizance, cannot satisfy them that exclusion from all voice in the determination of questions that affect the Empire, is innocuous, and continuance of the status quo reasonable and defensible. Not less must they see and feel that to send representatives to sit in the British Parliament would in no promising degree make matters better. Such representatives would 16 A COLONIAL BOARD. m ! deem it impertinent to vote on questions affect- ing only the British Islands. Motions carried by a majority dependent on Colonial votes would be resented among ourselves. The increased length and number of discussions on Colonial questions would only still more overburden Parliament ; and, after all, the Colonists could hardly expect to exert their legitimate influence and power either on Colo- nial or Imperial measures. Objections of the same character and weight cannot bo alleged to a proposi- tion which has often been made, with differences in details, to representatives of the principal Colonies sittmg at a Colonial Board, such as I have already spoken of, presided over by the Colonial Minister ; but, then, such a representatives would not touch the ques- tion presently before us, and would not mitigate the evils, or meet the claims, we are presently discussing. If the proposition were to admit representatives of the principal Colonies to places in the Cabinet, the only objection that could be raised is the incongruity of bur- dening them wdth the responsibility of deciding ques- tions which do not affect the Colonies nor the Empire,, but the British Islands only. I apprehend we are shut up to one conclusion and one course. That course perfectly satisfies some. If others can show a better, let them. Till then, and in its absence, we may be allowed to maintain and urge that the most or the only logical procedure is to superimpose over the several Parliaments and Administrations of the United Kingdom and the Colonies an Imperial representative Cabinet or Council, invested, under the Queen, with &i\- lliii AN IMPERIAL COUNCIL. 17 supreme power to act as a Legislature and Executive for the Empire. To such a body would be entrusted the determination of questions of j^eace or war, of contri- butions of men and money for naval and military pur- poses, of international treaties, and of all laws affecting tlie Empire as a whole. I do not conceive that there is any objection on prin- ciple to a Council invested with these great powers. It would work much more easily than it could have done but a few years ago, seeing Colonial representatives can now with lightning speed communicate with their several " countries." The Colonies would probablv hail the establishment of such a Council as a complimentary concession, as well as a positive advantage. They could not but feel just pride in being called on to take part in the great Council of the Empire. The inhabitants of the old country might not so easily reconcile themselves to their amended relation- ship. Some might represent it as a " coming down in the world." Others might apprehend that the new machinery would not work smoothly. To these and every hesitai..t an appeal must be made in the plainest terms, and in the most earnest language : Are you, or are you not, prepared for the alternative — disruption of the Empire, the severance from the Mother Country of the more important Colonies ? Let us not blink matters. There has been a por- tentous change. If we do not direct it aright, it will culminate in revolution. Negligence on the part of the British Parliament, and insouciance on that of British c 18 FEKLlNCi IN COLONIES. Governments, during the last quarter of a century, have allowed a few individuals or theorists to speak ex cathedra, and even to act with authority of office, in such a manner as to cause loyal Colonists to believe, and a few to allege openly, that the connexion of the Colonists with the Mother Country is regarded at home as a burden, and that their value to her is so disparaged, and the reciprocal claims, to which I at least attach the greatest importance, so attenuated, that we would will- ingly " let friends part as friends.") I need not multiply quotations from public docu- ments and the public press, to esiajlish this appalling charge. Unfortunately, inculpatory proofs are as plen- tiful as blackberries at this season. I merely quote a short extract from private letters which I have re- ceived within the last two or three months. A relation of my own writes in August from Canada : " The Liberal party, whose policy evidently is to throw Canada into the arms of the United States. . . . It is a great pity, as the bulk of the Canadian popula- lation are loyal to the heart's core, and justly proud of their connexion with Great Britain. We had an in- stance lately. The Independence-Annexation-Fenian party brought up a candidate " [in my correspondent's own district] " to oppose the nominee of the loyal party," &c. . . . ''The gentlemen of the Irish persuasion invariably supported the Annexation candidate. . . , Many of us are deeply grieved to see the Imperial Government abandoning the time-honoured and historic fortresses of Quebec and Kingston. It looks like leav- ing us to our fate." INDEPENDENCE NOT SEVERANCE. 19 Looks beguile. I am ready to distrust them here. It is to the credit of the present Government that they have avowed a settled purpose to assist the Colonies in case of war. How can they fulfil the pro- mise and engaf^ement on the present system, and with- out more concert with the Colonies ? This en passant. Another friend, a member of one of the Australian Legislatures, writes me : " At a Congress at Melbourne, for the purpose of a Customs Union, ideas are rather going in the direction of Independence altogether and confederation of the various Colonies." Observe the use of the word Independence in both letters. Plainly, we are reaping as we have sown. If there is not disaffection, certainly indifference has been engendered. Happily, there is no ground for disaffec- tion ; happily, whatever indifierence does exist admits of being removed, and that by moving on in the very direction indicated in the second of these communica- tions — that is, by conceding independence, conceding it in the sense and way of confederation ; in other words, enlarging the Imperial Constitution in such manner as to admit of the Colonies being put on a par with the United Kingdom in the government of the Empire. In case any one should conceive that separation of the Colonies can be effected without injury to the Mother Country, I ask him again to look to other nations. See France, cccupied by a population much more numerous than that of the British Isles ; yet it is sup- posed that even she, in order to greater magnitude, will seek to bring into alliance and unity of action with herself the contiguous peninsulas. See Germany, c 2 ^'|: 20 LAllOE POPULATION IS GREAT POWER. '111!; formerly composed of separate parts bound clumsily together, crystallizin<^ into one mass. See Russia, with a vast po})ulation, drawing to herself, with bearlike hugging, adjoining States. See the United States, with a population as great as that of Great Britain and the Colonies superadded. These last continue still to increase or grow, to grow rapidly. Knowing that a nation's strength and independence is in proportion to the number of fighting men and consequently of its people, taken in connexion with the conqmctness and defensibleness of its soil, and observing that the war spirit is not dead nor dying in the world, need one ask : Is this a time to be indifferent as to the magni- tude of the population of the British Empire, and be careless whether we, as a nation, grow stronger or weaker? Indi"!, we cannot take into account. The hundred and fifty or eighty millions there may be weakness as much as strength. If strength, this arises, in no small degree, from the strength of the rest of the Empire. Part with the Colonies, and we wecken our hold of India. We prepare the way for troubles, and invite movements and agitations ; 1 at might eventuate in loss of our dominion there, an^l of the 2yrestige and power which possessing it gives. The isolated position of the several parts of our Empire is also, in one point of view, weakness, but in another, strength. It exposes us at a great many points to attack. It is difficult, or impossible, to defend so extended frontiers, and so long and so many coast-lines. CONCILIATION OT (.'(JLONIKH. 21 On the other hand, the loss of a part docs not en- danger other parts. The ivholc of our tcrritones can- not be overrun by an enemy, and ^ve derive the benefit of places of security, replenishment, and repair for our navy and military at a great multiplicity of what, in varied circumstances, may prove to be positions of im- portance. After all, however, these are secondary considerations. A great and strong Power is normally and usually at peace Avith other notions. The posses- sion of harbours and depots is then of uneciuivocal and unmixed advantage. It is our own fault if we do not turn them to very profitable ac(;ount. ^* Oh," says he who is free-trader and nothing else, '^ under the beautiful and benign cosmopolitanism which Cobden preached and Britain practises, all nations and all flags are destined to have equal ad- vantages. Let the Colonies be abandoned, and even fall into the arms of foreign Powers, our trade would be unaffected. They'd still welcome our ships, and receive our cargoes, and send us their wealth." Friend, who are content with so little, can you be sure even of this ? Will slighted love and spurned advances not breed coldness, or aversion, or retalia- tion ? Will the protectionism which shelters and dis- guises itself as virtue, under the plea that blood is thicker than water, and charity begins at home, not overthrow existing commercial arrangements, and in- tensify tariffs that are adverse enough now, so as to be positively subversive of commerce ? Howevei", no com- plaints ! We are deeply thankful for the extent of profitable business that we actually do with the 22 EXTENT OF T^IADE WITH COLONIES. Colonies. Let me illustrate, by means of a few figures kindly furnished me by the ex-Fresident of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce. These show how much more largely than foreigners, man for man, Colonists trade with us : — COMPARATIVE IMPORT AND EXPORT PER THE POPULATION TO THE FOLLOWING COUNTRIES*— VIZ. :— Expoils. Population. and Imports. Russia 74,000,000 Franco 38,000,000 Italy 24,000,000 Austriii.. 34,670,000 Turkey in Europe ... 15,500,000 Holland 3,756,000 Belgium 5,000,000 United States 34,500,000 Brazil 10,000,000 ... £27,250,000 ... 57,410,000 9,250,000 3,270,000 .. 12,700,000 ... 28,000,000 ... 16,600,000 ... 66,800,000 ... 12,940,000 HEAD OF FOREIGN Rate per head. £ c«;. d. 7 4 1 10 7 6 1 8 16 7 10 3 2 1 18 15 239,426,000 £234,220,000 Less than 20s. per head. To the following British Possessions : — North America 4,250,000 ... 12,000,000 ... 2 17 6 West Indies 1,000,000 ... 9,500,000 ... 9 10 Australia 1,500,000 ... 25,500,000 ... 16 Singapore 300,000 ... 3,600,000 ... 12 Cape 260,000 ... 4,300,000 ... 18 7,310,000 £54,900,000; or £7 10s. per head. * The trade with India is at the rate of only about 7s. per head, but that country is not a " Colony." Tiie friimer of the table wishes it understood that it is not intended to be minutely accurate. ADVANTAGE FROM UNOCCUriED LANDS. 23 There is one inestimable advantage which the British Empire enjoys in common with three of the great Powers of the world. This advantage is presented to us only in and through the Colonies. I mean the possession of large unoccupied territories. France has something of the kind, but only in Algeria, and there under conditions which neutralize its bene- fits — a burning climate and hostile rightful claimants. Hussia is so sparsely populated that her vast area is not needed in order to sustain an increasing population. The United States are in circumstances exactly like ours. They have vast tracts still open, and in a tem- perate climate. Probably, immigrants from Great Britain would reach the extreme far West, even Cali- fornia, more cheaply than South Africa or Australasia. But on the debtor side of the account must be placed distance from the sea ; and the lanky look of the American may well occasion doubt whether Europeans will thrive, even in body, over there as well as in the British Possessions. The philosophy and good sense of the case is, let Britons be content and grateful, and keep together. Nationally, we can hardly, if at all, be situated better than we are. If our superior advantages are not seen by some men, remove the film from these short-sighted eyes. If quite w^ell seen, and yet perilously slighted, the more shame. But there is no great good in self- reproach. Enough that we reverse erroneous proce- dure. The earlier we make known our determination to hold the Color les firmly, the better. There is no second unoccupied world for us to conquer and colonize. h IS: :'! 24 HOPES OF THE FUTURE. Great Britain and the United States (inheritrix on a title we don't care to dispute) own and possess all the fertile and accessible tracts oi the globe . Observance of British antecedents, and conscious- ness of the nobleness of British policy, Avarrant us to believe, what other nations will not hesitate to admit, that the retirement of Great Britain from her place of pre-eminence and its opportunities, her relinquishment of the post Avhich Providence and mankind assign her, would be a just and great and perpetual subject of world-wide lamentation. Why should we retire volun- tarily and unnecessarily ? We may hope, if not 1 1- tacked too suddenly and by combined force, and li' repressing impracticable meddlesomeness, to stand our ground. How much stronger will the Empire be by-and-by, when, through judicious encouragement of emigration and presentment of facilities for the cultivation of waste lands, the Colonies shall have doubled the Empire's population and strength ! Friendship, or alliance, with such a Power as we shall then be, will and must be sought and valued. If the Anglo-Saxon, Ox- rather — for we forget not the Celts — the English- speaking races, act in harmony, with no jealousies among themselves, they will form a coalition which no nation dare oppose, yet none need fear ; for its power will never be exercised adversely to mankind. For tliis reason, if for no other, let the United States and our " United Empire " act and feel towards each other as if the day may not be distant, and ought, b}^ interchange of kind offices and reciprocation of i^ UNION OF ENGLISH-SPEAKING NATIONS. 25 courteous respect, to be accelerated, when botli will be cemented in the warmest, as it will be the most natural and congenial, of alliances. Why may I not express, what I rejoice to discover is a cherished thought in many earnest and large hearts — hope, rising almost to anticipation, that the United States of South America and ^'the United States of the Britannic Empire " will, a century hence, be federated together, as not merely geographically, but morally, a great " Atlantica " and " Pacifica," — AtlarUic, as being the realization of the fabled sus- tainer of the world in its place and order, by means of quiet, concentrated strength ; and Pacific, as the keeper of the world's peace, by its diffused healthful influence. With the Germans, now^ in the ascendant, all these federable States have the ties of blood-relationship and love of religious freedom and simplicity. With the French, the Celtic element in Scotland, Ireland, and Canada makes us akiu. With the Russians, we will be close neighbours in the East and in the North, with- out adequate motive for jealousies and unworthy rivalries. Is chis picture j^^inted in too glov/ing colours ? Is there no dark back-ground ? There may possibly bo a hidden wish, in quarters wliere our type of civiliza- tion, and liberty, and religion is feared and distru^-ted, that the U^nited Kingdom should decline in influence. Some, with this in view, may insidiously favour disin- tegration. Cavete canes. Undoubtedly I have indulged my imagination by conceiving a bright future. 1' 26 NO UNC^-RTAIN SOUND. It is with the present we have to do. Our immediate concern is to counteract any disintegrative tendency, and to prevent its development. There is no wisdom in letting the ships of a fleet drift apart. Our Admiral should give forth the word that will keep us together, and lead us on the right course. His trumpet must not give forth a faint nor a,n uncertain sound. "Why should our statesmen, like the parent who was " very old," and "heard all that his sons did" without re- straining, feebly say with him, " "Why do ye such things ? for ^ hear of your evil dealings by all this people. Nay, sons, for it is no good report that I hear." I wish that some of the most prominent went even thus far. They even speak of " educating" our Colonists for such a catastrophe, as if it were a merit to lead on thereto ! It is high time to wake up and wao^e war aofainsb such disturbers. Let us beware especially of undermining operations, and cease to con- fer honours on men who openly advocate secession. To be practical : let the British family be summoned together for a family council. The Colonists will there tell all that is in their mind. We shall learn what they wish. They will be able not only to speak for themselves, and disarm our minds of fears which sheer ignorance and distance (not always lending enchant- ment to a view) ma}'- have generated and fostered. They will add wisdom, vigour, and impulse to our de- liberations and our acts. All have a commoL and im perial cause in hand ; let there be a common and im- perial character given to these deliberations and acts. CONSULTATION WITH COLONIES. 27 The case is undoubtedly urgent. Every mail brings fresh evidence and tidings of mischief brewing. If there are to be consultations and negotiations (and where several parties are to enter into an agreement negotiations there must be), a time of harmony is always the most opportune. Such a time is the present. There is nowhere any jarring just now. The period, there- fore, is eminently favourable ; and a good excuse, a ready occasion, a sufficient motive, is at this very moment happily presented. The United Kingdom is moved oa the subject of its national defences and armaments, which are admittedly inadequate for the contingency of sudden emergencies. The same negli- gence, or false security, in virtue of which we have inconsiderately been slumbering at home, has prevailed in the Colonies. Yet there it is as necessary as here that there should be devised beforehand, and prepared for the demands of required instant service, a thorough system of naval and military armaments. But w^ho shall prescribe their mode and extent, and command actual performance of the work ? The Colonial Minister cannot do this of himself The Cabinet can- not. Parliament would shrink from the responsibility as too venturesome, even if it possessed the necessary qualification and aptitude. The object cannot be attained in any serviceable time and manner by correspondence. The business is too complicated for that. It does not brook slowness and delays. The condition is unexampled. The right to determine and execute practically lies with others, who, if they do not require to be conciliated, at 28 A CONFERENCE SHOULD BE HELD. least (and that not merely from courtesy, but in the veiy nature of the case) need to be consulted and worked with heartily as any principal co-operators. Would that the Government saw and felt all this. Surely a ^' ])ro re nata council of the Empire/' how- ever informally, and in spite of there being no prece- dents for such a course, ought to be immediately con- vened. Their deliberations would, as a matter of course, but by no means as a matter for regret, diverge and expand, so as to comprehend other cogna> e sub- jects on which it is desirable and important that all parts of the Empire should arrive at a common un- derstanding. There are many points connected with our legislation that demand attention. There are many questions on which our remoter fellow-sub- jects are entitled and able to make weighty repre- sentations. One of their propositions will, probably, be a supreme and permanent Council for the Empire — such as that which it is the chief object of this paper to recommend and promote. I hope it will be so. I have little anxiety as to the course of 'events. To sum up my convictions and aspirations, may I again revert to early history for apposite words ? To an ancient mother it was said, as Providence is now saying to the Mother Country, " I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude." " Arise ! lift up the lad, and hold him m thine hand, for I will make him a great nation." In the same venerable record Ave find addressed to another mother a filial remonstrance, which I give the Colonies the credit of adopting : '' Entreat me not to leave PART ? NO, NEVER ! 29 thee, or to return from following after tliee ; for whither thou goest T will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people, "and thy God my God. Where thou diest I will die, and there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and mor^ also, if aught but death part thee and me." ^ 30 NATIONAL STRENGTH. THE UNITED KINGDOM AND COLONIES ONE AUTONOMIC EMPIEE. A PAPEU READ BEFORE THE AfiSOCIATION FOR THE PROMOTION OP SOCIAL SCIENCE, AT BRISTOL, 1869. That regcard for liberty and equity which character- izes the law and rule and diplonatic action of our country, warrant our belief that the permanence of her place and influence, as a first-class Power, is a matter to be desired for the sake of the great world among whose nations she has so wonderfully acquired a com- manding position. A people may be powerful by reason either of moral influence or of natural strength. Practically, the former, which is the nobler and more valuable attain- ment, cannot subsist effectually if not associated with the latter, the coarser and more common-place attri- bute. This strength is relative. A nation may be- come weaker even while its resources are as great, and its people as many and as brave as ever, if other nations are outstripping it in resources and particu- larly in numbers, either by the natural growth of population, or by emigration, or by extension of populated territory. Pussia, Germany, and the United States, are at this moment much ahead of the United Kingdom in the number of fighting men they can train for defence and attack. These Powers are also remarkably compact in respect to their territories, whereas the British Empire lies scattered in separate portions over the globe. This diffusion is not without advantages ; whether PRESENT SELF-INDULGENCE. 31 on the whole for better or worse, it is our situation, and we accept it. This our situation involves duties. In accepting it, we assume heavy responsibilities. These duties and responsibilities, I much fear, have been generally overlooked, or, at least, are seldom boldly faced. We do not realize the grandeur of the heritage and trust which have been committed to the last and the present generation of Britons and, if the term will be allowed, Anglo-Celts. Our immediate predecessors, and w^e ourselves, have sought present ease and prosperity Avithout considering earnestly what is best for the estate we are called to occupy as life-tenants and administer as trustees. I fear we have been deluding ourselves by the transparent fal- lacy that what contributes most to the enjoyment and wealth of the living will best serve the unborn. Is it beyond the truth of facts to suggest that we have hoodwinked ourselves into presumptuous and foolish confidence that in future there will be no costly wars, or, if there shall be such wars, that the un- paid enormous debts incurred in former wars (which were carried on far more cheaply than can be the case hereafter) will form no serious obstacle to suc- cess in them ; that is, that more hundreds of mil- lions will, notwithstanding these liabilities, be bor- rowed on favourable terms, and the augmentec. charge of interest for the doubled or trebled debt will, when peace is restored, occasion, and be, no hin- drance to the nation's continued prosperity ? This is the charitable construction of our acts. Unfortunately, the frivolous way in which the question, " What has Ldl_ :lliMi' ji 32 FARMING OR TRADE ? 'ill liilKi' posterity done for us ? " is frequently put and received, conveys to thoughtful minds painful misgivings and forebodinj^s of a less flatterins^ character. A principal feature of British policy since the peace of 1815 has been to stimulate manufactures and trade. Equal heed has not been given to the ad- vantages of promoting agriculture, though this is a source of wealth which is far steadier and more un- failing than foreign trade, and an occupation that produces men of greater physical vigour than manu- factures — men also better rooted and more deeply interested in the land we live in and in its Colonies. Attention to home agriculture has been left to the landlords, who, it must be said, have wonderfully developed the capabilities of the soil (except in so far as the influence of game laws and the desire of sport have restrained the tendency to reclaim). As to farming in the Colonies, considerable efforts have no doubt been put forth by the State as proprietor of waste lands, but not in a manner worthy of being regarded and praised as national policy. Without disparaging the beneficial tendency, in several points of view, of the remarkable progress of mining, manu- factures, and commerce, to which we have attained, there is room to question whether our national great- ness, our national stability, our national independence, our national solidarity, as well as our national present happiness and future prospects, would not have been much more thorough and satisfactory if Government and people had sought earnestly and with less dis- traction that the outflow of our population and the EMIGRATION TO COLONIES. 33 t obtaining of employment had been towards agriculture at home and in British '^■olonial territories. Hitherto emigration, which in itself surely is a matter for any- thing but congratulation if we consider its causes, has not been regulated, or directed, to the extent to which it might have been, on the principle that it is better to retain the emigrant as a British subject than to have him numbered among foreigners. In the one case he Avould, in time of peace, be a consumer almost ex- clusively of British goods, and a contributor to British wealth ; and, in time of war, a prized addition to the prowess and patriotism we might evoke. In the other case he would consume foreign conmiodities, or else British commodities heavily taxed by (his own) unsym- pathetic legislation, and might even be called to take up arms against his native country. It is not too late to mend. Opportunities indeed have been missed, millions of our best sons and daughters are nov/ citizens of the United States ; but we have few wrongs to redress, little or no legislation to undo. If we have erred, it has been in the spirit of a free nation. Our people have been left free to go wherever they liked. Our Colonies have been allowed to frame their own laws, and impose whatever duties they thought fit, I shall not say even to the unnatural ex- tent of commercial j^arricide. but, speaking euphemis- tically, of commercial suicide. Thoy are loyal to our beloved Sovereign and to the Constitution. They cannot but appreciate the treatment they have re- ceived. If our relationship had been as it was of old, when their trade was restricted by exclusive regard • 84 HKCOONITION OF EQUALITY. to the interests of the Mother Country (T prefer to use that word which conie.s, and ever will conio, to our ears and hearts with more dearness and tenderness than doeJi "Fatlierland " to the Germans), we would not at this day have been addressing them through British governors with the excessive frankness which lias just awakened our feUow-subjects to a sense of their new position of reco;_;nized equality and of liberty to judge and act no longer as our children, but as full-grown though younger brothers jind adult members of the British family. Their rulers are in little danger of supposing that what is really complimentary, and a recognition of the rights and powers they have achieved, is an expression of British indifference to the connexion that subsists between us. On the contra'' we would feel pain to part ; but w^e are avQrse to cl the right and power which theoretically belongs to us to overrule their decisions and shape their destinies. We hail them now, not as Dependencies, but as parts of the same Empire, participants of our ancient and noble privileges, and sharers of our grand responsi- bilities. Both they and we see that in union is our strength. The bundle of rods must and will be kept to- gether Like the patriarch, we all say, and the Colonies most especially, " With a staff w^e crossed the waters, and now we are become bands, strong and many, bound together as one." When other States of the world are growing in number of subjects and extent of territory, it would be a matter for unbounded regret if the British Empire were to shiver into fragments. There- fore we will not part from one another, if it is possible, ADVANTA(JK TO COLONIES. 35 re- as we know it is, to luaintaiu the union that has boon so long enjoyed. Lot us rather consult together how best to consolidate and weld or fuse into one mass what is in nature congenial, and is already warm. Even now the comprehending of the Colonies in tlie census of British subjects, without including in the aggregate the vast population of India, shows that, in point of peopled territory, we are entitled to a proud, but I trust not abused, pre-eminence among the nations ? To how much more, when we take into ac- count the tendency of Anglo-Saxons and Anglo-Celts to multiply and replenish, in a few years may we ex- pect to grow ? I see no reason why we should not be able in half-a-century to con it equal to the greatest Powers then sharing the beneficent domination of this earth. We at home require, however, to recall the Colonies to greater consciousness of the fact, and the value to themselves, of their British origin and connexion. We and they require to reconstitute our reciprocal relation- ship, if not on a firmer, at least on a new basis. As for us, we must not merely appeal to our claims on them and their claims on us, but show ourselves worthy of their admiration and confidence. We must so act as to make them court amalgamation. A feeling of this kind cannot be relied upon if our British policy continues so selfish and so short-sighted as it has been. We must no longer rest satisfied with our- selves, while making no attempt, even the feeblest, at once to reduce and finally to remove our prodigious and disgraceful debt of eight hundred millions. What D 2 36 NATIONAL DEBT. K t ■I' are our honest fellow-snbjects — not to say the open- eyed citizens of other States — to conclude, when a popular Chancellor of the Exchequer, in answer to a recent motion in the House of Commons calling atten- tion to this subject, points with more than complacency to the fact that for the last few years three millions and odd sterling per annum have, casually and certainly without set purpose, been written off by the favourable circumstance of there being surplus re- venue/"' They cannot but contrast the etout and success- ful efforts, mad 3 at no small personal cost, of the people of the United States to extinguish, as is expected to be done within fifteen, or at the utmost twenty-five years, the heavy debt which imposes on those States the payment of interest not much short of our own annual burden. Seeing we are utterly indisposed to do our duties in peace, how can we expect that the Colonists will maintain, if they can escape it, relation- ship with a Power that, so far from preparing itself in peace for the fresh debts which war is too sure to bring, is actually making itself effeminate, by avoiding, with equivocal morality or unequivocal immorality, that necessary hardship of bearing taxes and denying our- selves luxuries, which would form a valuable training for evil times that may come, God only knows how soon. It is much the same with regard to our amiaments, naval and military. How can we hope that Colonies will esteem 9 people which — in these times, when other i * Duriug last Session the House of Commons, with approval of the right honourable gentleman, passed unanimously a mot i guard against the military blunder of leaving our communications and our whole position exposed in order to defend small and, in a purely military sense, valueless posts. Let Canada, and all our Colonies and territories unnecessary to the Empire as miUtary posts, fully and clearly understand that we will never suffer them to be wrested from the Mother Country ; that any attempt to do so will bring down upon the aggressor the vengeance of England, but that they must rely on themselves for protection from direct assault, in order to leave the regular forces of the United Kingdom free to act in such a manner as will best make that vengeance felt." " The communications of the Empire being the common property of all its component parts, it follows that their security is an imperial necessity, and that our first duty towards our Colonies and Posses- sions is to provide means by which the roads between us and them may be kept open. For this purpose the fleet is, of course, the engine to employ ; but, in order to enable it to act, it must be divided into parts, these being distributed in different quarters of the globe, the strength of each part being in proportion to the forces against which it would probably have to contend, and to the interests it has to pro- tect. As each fleet constantly requires stores, repairs, and reserves of men, the protection of our communications would not be accomplished l)y the judicious distribution of the Navy, unless means are devised for securing to each fleet the j)ower of self-support ; therefore each must be provided with a head-quarters, or base of operations, where all these things, so essential to its vigorous action, are to be found." 54 LINES OF INTERCOMMUNICATION. I then proceeded to state that these minor bases should be situated so as to command the Hnes of com- munication and possess natural advantages rendering them capable of defence, and of being not only depots for war forces, but also ports of refuge for our traders during maritime war ; the naval stations, of which they are respectively the head-quarters, being so arranged as to make them central points, they should be, further, the chief, if not the only, coaling ports of the stations. According to my calculation, they are 16 in number, including Bombay, which is the natural grand base of operations in the Eastern seas. They would all require garrisons in time of maritime war. Tliey are. Sir, the " strategic points " which we must strain every nerve to hold. Having named them, and the means necessary for their defence, I concluded by saying : — " It has been truly stated tliat it is wiser to concentrate the resources of a country on the fortifications of the principal arsenals, so as to secure them against capture, than to expend the same resources on many comparatively unimportant points, which, from their isolation and weakness, invite attack and afford cheap victories. Now, viewing the whole Empire as a country exposed to attack, it may be said that it would be better to turn our resources to the purpose of securing points which command our communications than to fritter them away in attempting to defend a variety of unimportant positions. How far we have hitherto acted upon this principle may be gathered from the fact that the estimated Imperial military expenditure upon our Colonios and Dependencies for the year 18G4-5 amounted to about 3,500,000/., and of this sum only about 1,300,000/. was expended on the outposts I have named. Now, if these positions are lost to us, the safety of our communications is gone. That being the case, we could do little to assist any of our distant Possessions in time of need. "Why, then, expend nearly two-thirds of our available resources upon unimportant points, which would afford ' cheap victories,' while but one-third is DEFENCES MUST BE IMPERIAL. 55 spout npon positions tI,o loss of which would involve the whole Emnii-o m a state of commercial and military paralysis ? " ' If, Sir, Mr. Macfie's proposal for a commission of deputies to confer on the best means of defending tlie Empire be carried into effect, it will be a curious prac- tical comment on words put forward by me anony- mously four years ago in " the protection of our com- T,T;n .,^'^'" 'P''"''""^ "*■ ^^^ ^'^^'"^'^ Commission 01 lb.59 these words occur : co2eato^i''^"'y^T-"'' '""^""^ "' the Commissioners were Z^sto\llZ"l7 "' "''''"" "'-'"'• ^ -■'ideratiou of the means to be adopted for n.ational defence can only be b.ascd cnon national requn^ement, .and cannot be limited to drawin., no deXn or sat^y'oftrel;::' . ' """"" "' ""'' '" ''" '='^"™' -"-> f- "'^ I am, &c. 56 llELATIOX OF COLONY TO PARENT STATE. OPINIONS OF THE AUTHOR OF "FRIENDS IN COUNCIL." (From Good Words for December, 1870.) " I now proceed to discuss the third branch of the subject — namely, the rehition of the Colony to the Parent State. " There are five different conditions of tliis relation. . . . " 2. Then there is that condition of a Colony which is complete in its union with the Parent State — when the difference between the Colonist and the Citizen at home is a difference of distance only from the centre of government. There are few, if any, perfect instances of tiiis condition of a Colony ; but I would wish to imprei^s upon the reader that there is no reason in the nature of things why this con- dition could not be originated and maintained. Modern wavs and means all tend to render it more feasible. The swiftness of commu- nication and the general assimilation of manners and liabits in modern times are greatly in its favour. Probably, had it been more tried, it would have had more to say for itself. I will hereafter return to a further consideration of it " 4. TJiere is the condition of federation. Now federation may be of two kinds. There is the federation which exists only for the purposes of war, or, to put it more largely, for tlie purposes of deal- ing with foreign States. Again, there is the federation which is of a much more intimate kind, and such as that which prevails among the respective States of the great American Republic — a federation in which a certain community of law, privilege, and citizenship exists, and in which the several communities are knit together by common principles of thought and action. These communities may, or may not, have a central seat ot government. The principle of federation is the same in both cases. " Even the minor experiment has not been tried, of attaching a Council to the Colonial Office, composed of eminent Colonists return- ing to the Mother Country for a certain period, or of persons who have distinguished themselve in colonization, or of those who are versed in the study of the Colonies and Colonial administration. We have a similar body connected with the affairs of India ; but we have never given to our Colonial administration the aid and security which such a Council would afford." o7 CLIPPINGS FROM DR. LANG'S NEW BOOK. [27ie italics are in the original^] I have now received a copy of this goodly octavo of more than 500 pages. It is not my part ^o criticise it, nor to expose its weaknesses. I met Dr. Lang a ciurd of a century ago. lie was an eminent Colonist then, and must now be far advanced in years, and I have been accustomed to hold him in respect. He has the good of Australia at heart. I regret that he allows his feelings such vent as to make the reading of the book painful. In spite of questionable logic and consistency — for the composition is crude and not homogeneous — it is instructive and suggestive. The Doctor proves successfully that the statics quo of the Colonial relations is utterly unsatisfactory, and he makes many admissions, and adduces not a few arguments and quota- tions, for which he deserves thanks. To a certain extent he and we go together. Perhaps he would cheerfully halt where we stop. This is the more probable, as among the schemes which he combats, the rational one of an Imperial Confederation finds no place. He strangely ignores it throughout, and does not even approach it except in one case, where he seems to introduce it unconsciously, and, as will be seen below, mistakes what is meant. In the Dedication his aim is stated, in connexion with bold asser- tions, thus: — " The settlement of the great question that is now virtually submitted for our decision — viz., as to whether we and the Colonies to the north- ward are to remain for an indefinite period mere Colonies of Britain, or to assume the noble position of a Sovereign and Independent State on the Pacific Ocean, with a territory extending from Cape Howe to Cape York, and the city of Sydney for its capital, as the Queen of the Isles of the Western Pacific. " You will see from this volume that it is the law of nature and the ordinance of God, that full-grown Colonies, like ourselves, should assume such a position as I have indicated at the earliest possible period, for the benefit of their Mother Country, as well as for their own. " You wiU also see that from Great Britain's ignoring, or rather 58 BOLD INFERENCES. wilfully shutting her eyes to tliis groat fact, her colonization system for the last two hundred and fifty ycai's — so far from meriting the praise which ignorance and self-glorification have so often bestowed upon it — has been nothing less than an enormous political blunder, an offence of very serious magnitude in the eyes cf Heaven, and a loss of incalculable amount, not only to herself and her Colonies, but to the human race. " You will likewise see that the Mother Country, tacifly recognizing this great political blunder of the past, has at length expressed her willingness that we should at once assume such a position as I have indicated, and has intimated her meaning in the matter in the most signilicant manner, by the withdrawal of her troops from all these Australian Colonies. " You will see, moreover, that there is an urgent necessity at present for our immediately taking the step I have recommended, Lom the critical state of things in the rich and beautiful Isles of the Western Pacilic, that naturally look to us as their guide and protector. "And you will see finally that by assuming the high and highly influential position that thus awaits us — by taking our place at once in the family of nations, with the entire concurrence of Her Majesty's Government — we may be the means of relieving our beloved Mother Country, in a comparatively short period, of not less perhaps than half a million of her redundant population, without expense either to herself or to us, and planting them as British Colonists in the multi- tude of the Isles." Mi Ji Again, in the Preface : — " It is the primary object of the following work to point out the right principles of colonization, and to coniirm the theory thus ad- vanced by an appeal to the principles and practice of those nations, both in ancient and modern times, whose efforts in the work of coloni- zation have not only been successful, but have, notwithstanding all our boasting on the subject, presented a perfect contrast with our own. lu short, it is the object of the writer to show that Great Britain has hitherto been all wrong in her principles and practice in the matter of colonization, and to point out, in accordance with the laws of nature and the ordinance of God, a more excellent way ; that way being the way of entire freedom and independence. . . . " While this volume was passing through the press, an Intercolonial Conference was held in Melbourne, with a view to take into considera- tion the practicability and the propriety of establishing a General AUSTRALIA AND PARTIAL FEDERATION. 59 Customs League and a uniform tariff for all the Australian Colonics — preparatory, as such a measure was conceived to be, to a general federation of the Colonies. In the i)rospect of this most desirable consummation, the writer had perhaps too confidently urged the claim for freedom and independence for the Seven United Trovinces of Australia. But the result of that Conference has shown that is hope- less to expect an incorporating union of all the Seven Provinces at present ; the three Colonies on J3ass's Straits and the Great Southern Ocean — viz., Victoria, Tasmania, and South Australia — being banded together in favour of Protective Duties ; while New South Wales, the oldest of the group and the mother of all the rest, adheres firmly to the system of Free Trade. It has, therefore, become necessary to leave out of the programme the three Southern Colonies, for the present at least, and to confine the claim of freedom and independence to the Colonies, both present and prospective, on the Pacific Ocean, from Cape llowc to Cape York — viz., New South Wales, Queensland, Capricornia, and Carpentaria, " The principal reason for urging the immediate accomplishment of the great object in view is the absolute necessity for the erection of a Sovereign and Independent Power on the Pacific, in view of the actual state of things in the Fiji Islands. On this transcendently important subject, however, it is pitiful to tliink that the Conference could only come to the following impotent conclusion : — "BRITISH rKOTECTOUATE OVER FIJI. " ' This Conference, being of opinion that the geographical position of the Fiji Islands renders their protection of the very highest con- sideration as regards Australia, and both British and AustraUan commerce, — " ' Resolves, — That it is of the utmost importance to British inte- rests that these islands should not form part of or be under the guardianship of any other country than Great Britain ; and that a respectful address to this effect be prepared for transmission to the Imperial authorities.' " Did the Conference really suppose that, after- their recent declara- tion in behalf of Colonial freedom, and their recent and still more significant proceedings, in withdrawing the Imperial troops from the Australian Colonies and New Zealand, Her Majesty's Government could possibly stultify itself by assuming the responsibility of esta- blishing a British Protectorate over the Fiji Islands, and thereby in- curring the risk of another war with savages in the Pacific Ocean? •60 FIJI. There are at present upwards of two thousand white men, chiefly British, with about one-third Americans and Germans, in the Fiji Islands ; and the native population is estimated at two hundred thousand. There is actually at this moment also a requisition in Sydney from the Islands to prohibit the export of fire-arms for the use of the natives — which, however, cannot bo done without an Act of Parliament, and the report of which will certainly not induce Iler Majesty's Government to change their ii.inds or to move in the matter, after their bitter recollections of New Zealand. On the other hand, there are people in these Islands actually talking still about annexation to the United States or to the North German Confederation. In such circumstances, there is an evident and urgent necessity for action of some kind in the matter ; and earnestly desirous as the writer is, in common with the Intercolonial Conference, that the Fiji Islands may never fall under the guardianship of any foreign Power, it must be evident that the only way in which this can be prevented, and a really British I'rotectoratc over these Islands established, is the one recom- mended in this volume — that of erecting n ' ' )vereign and Independent State on the PaciGc." The first sentence of the Work itself defines a Colony to be " a body of people who have gone forth from the Parent State, either simul- taneously or progressively, and formed a permanent settlement in some remote territorv." lie omits from the definition the idea that the land on which the Colony settles belonged to the Mother Country, and continues a part of the national territories. Is it fair to assume that they have left the Parent State ? Mark the covert insinuation ! He is careful in distinguishing between the people^ whom he recog- nizes as the Colony, and the province, or territory on which they settle. It is in the latter sense we speak of "the British Colonies." " It is a common but an unfounded idea that the word Colony has a territorial meaning, and signifies the tract of country inhabited, or to be inhabited, by any body of Colonists, as well as the people who form the Colony. It has no such meaning, however. It signifies the people exclusively. . . . This mistake, as to the meaning of the word Colony, has been rather a serious matter to Colonists generally ; for by taking it for granted that a particular nation has rights, arising either from discovery or conquest, over a particular unoccupied territory or Colony, in the territorial sense of the word, it has been inferred, without the least shadow of reason, that it has also a right to govern the people WHICH ARE COLONIES ? 61 who may settle within that territory for all time coming. Now we Colonists adiiiit the national right, whether of discovery or of conquest, as a right against any other colonizing nation ; but we rcpndiiite the inference of its implying a right to govern tlio future occupants of the territory, as being altogether unfounded in reason and justice. For example, we admit the right of Great IJritain to the exclusive coloni- zation of the whole east coast of Australia, that coast having boon dis- covered, in the interest and on behalf of the British nation, by our illustrious fellow-countryman. Captain Cook ; and we would therefore do our best, as Britons, to prevent any other European nation from forming settlements on that coast. But we maintain, as Australian Colonists, that this right of discovery, as well as of exclusive coloniza- tion in favour of Great Britain, which it implies, imi)lies no right what- ever, on the part of the British people, to exercist; domination over the British Colonists who may settle from time to time on that coast. . . . " Our detinition must also exclude such Depentlencies of the British Empire as Lower Canada, the Mauritius, St. Lucia, the Cape of Good Hope, Demerara, and Trinidad. . . " Neither are the really British Islands of tlie West Indies — Jamaica, Barbadoes, St. Vincent, &c., including the Bahama Islands — entitled to be called Biitish Colonies. At least nim out of every ten of the inhabitants of these Islands are Africans or the descendants of Africans, who were originally stolon from their native country and made slaves of, to grow, sugar, cotton, and coffee for I']nglishmen ; and the very few Britons, comparatively, who ever went to them went merely to make money, and to return. These Islands are therefore merely British Possessions. . . . " They are all British Possessions, and it is doubtless necessary for the purposes of a great maritime and commercial nation that they should always remain so ; but not one of them is a British Colony, properly so called. . . " Still less are we entitled to profane the designation British Colony — which I confess I consider a very high and honourable distinction for any community, and one that ought not to be lightly applied or appro- priated where it is not deserved — by applying to any of those nume- rous posts or stations that are held either for naval and military pur- poses, or for the furtherance and protection of commerce." The venerable author proceeds to the objects of colonization : — " What then are the proper and legitimate objects which such a country as Great Britain ought to have in view or to propose to OBJECTS OF COLONIZATION. "t'Tffi herself in forming? sncli Colonics ns these — British Colonics properly 80 called ? They are — " 1. To secure an eligll)lc outlet for her redundant population of all grades and classes. " 2. To create a market for her manufactured produce by increasing and multiplyint^ its consumers indednltely. " 3. To open up a field for the growth of raw produce for her trade and manufactures ; and, " 4. To sustai.i and extend her commerce by carrying out all these objects simultaneously. " Now these are noble objects for any nation to pursue ; and no wonder that Lord IJacon should designate the peculiar work they indicate the heroic ivorJc of colonization. Nay, it is something more even than a merely heroic work : it is the course divinely prescribed in the first commandment given to the hnman mco, ^^ JJe, fruitful and multiph/, ami replenish the earth, ami subdue it; " and it may, therefore, bo inferred that it tan never be safe for any nation to neglect this work, if in the peculiar circumstances to which the commandment a[)plies. For, as " God made the earth to be inhabited" lie will certainly hold that nation which he has specially called in Ills Providence to carry out this Divine ordinance, responsible for the neglect of its proper duty, if it has been neglected, and will afflict and punish it accord- ingly. . . . " It must be clear therefore as daylight that Great Britain has been specially called, in the good Providence of God, to the heroic work of colonization. She has by far the largest Colonial Empire in the world : she has facilities for colonization such as no other nation on earth has ever had since the foundation of the world ; and she has a remarkably redundant, and at the same time a peculiarly energetic people, the fittest on earth for this heroic work, and the most willing to engage in it heartily. And it must be equally clear, from our very limited experience on the subject as a colonizing nation, that a regular and systematic obedience of the Divine commandment, on the part of Great Britain, would, in such circumstances, enable her to realize all the objects of colonization enumerated above." The reader will please observe that among the objects of J coloniza- tion, and therefore of retention of colonies, preservation aud increase of the nation's power is not mentioned. — The Preface begins thus : — " There is no great public question in which the British nation has DISLOYAL ARGUMKNTS 63 so (loop an I'ntorcst, or in ref]^ar(l to wliioli a larpjo proportion of the intollifjjenco of the country is so profoundly iind fatally ijrnorant, as tho Colonial (juestlon, or the proi)or relation of a Mother Country to her Colonies." no allows elsewhere — " It is one of the gratifyinp; signs of tho times that the true relation of a Colony to its Mother Country is thus at lenjjth understood and ni)prc(;iated in tho most influential quarters, both at home and abroad." Heavy as arc his discharges of artillery against tho departed system of Colonial government, he always honourably acknowledges that all is changed now. In page 8 in the Preface he speaks of " The bad system of government that has universally prevailed, till Very recently, in the British Colonies." Again : " Tho last state of the British Colonies, till the advent of respon- sible government in the year 185G, has been worse than the first." Nevertheless, Dr. Lang argues persistently that the relations of the Colonies with the United Kingdom are not on a right footing. It domineers over them. It is chargeable with lust of empire (meaning imperium, rule, no doubt). They are of age, and should be free and independent. They aspire to become Colonial nationalities. lie asks, " What right can either Tier Majesty Queen Victoria, or the Imperial Parliament, have to subject us to their dominion one hour longer than ■we please ourselves ? . . . " As to the charge of our violating or renouncing our allegiance to Her Majesty the Queen, in claiming, as we do, our entire freedom and independence, I repeat it, there is a j)revious question to be put and answered, ere this knotty point can be determined, ere this offensive charge can be substantiated — I moan the question as to whether we, as British Colonists who have attained our political majority, have, or have not, a right to our entire freedom and independence. For if we have such a right, as I have shown we have, the right of Her Majesty the Queen to reign over us necessarily ceases and determines. Under the universal government of God there cannot possibly be two inconsistent 64 COLONIAL NATIONALITY. it I and iticomp. tible rights ; and the right to obedience or allegi- ance, on tli> one part, is clearly inconsistent and incompatible with the right to freedom and indepen(^ence on the other. . . . Let us hear no more, then, of tiii^ pitiful, this contemptible charge, about our violating or renouncing our allegiance. The question is, do we owe such allegiance, in the sense in which the term is used 'ji the charge, as implying that wo have nc rights in the case ? To whs \ I unhesitatingly answor, No." Who will call that loyal ? " There is a time when the youth is no longer to be under tutors and governors, lie attains his majority " . . . " Tiiere is certainly no law requiring a young man to claim entire freedom from all parental control wl'»n he attains his majority ; and if he chooses to remain in h! 5 father's house, and assist him in his business, that is his uwn affair, and is supposed to be matter of private arrange- ment between his father and liimself, with which no law can interfere." . . " Af! time wears on, and tlie new interests with which he has become identified are multiplied and strengthened, this feeling gradually ripens into a spirit of what may perhaps be designated Colonial nationality. His native land gradually fades from his view, and his interest in its peculiar objects becomes fainter and fainter. The particular Colon^', or group of Colonies, to v/hich he l^elongs, e.grosses all his affect' ons. " ;?!o far indeed from the feeling of nationality being a mere matter of the imagination, it constitutes a bond of brotherhood of the most influential and salutary character, and forms one of the most pov^erful princi})les of virtuous action. Like the main-spring of a watch, it sets the whole machinery in motion. Like the heart, it causes the pulse of life to beat in the farthest extremities of the system. It is the very soul of soc'Pity, which animates and exalts the whole brotherhood of associated men.". ... On the foregoing I make only these remarks. As already shown, the " young man " is partner in a firm holding valuable pro- perties, Ilis coming of age does not entitle him to carry these off. Seeing the principle of nationality is so good, why cause the national relationship already constituted and implied to cease ? - ^ ^ - -- " Must it be held a crime for tfie Australian Colonist, who has come forth in the vigour of manhood to this far land, to labour earnestly ^'.■r the freedom and independence of his adopted country, and to identify LOVE OF ENGLAND. 65 liv. lal ify himself, in reality as well as in imncrination, with the cominj^ glories of that great nation of the future of which he forms a part? " " la one word, nationality, or tlioir entire freedom and independence, is absolutely necessary for the social welfare and political advancement of the Australian Colonies. Give n;-- this, and you give us everything to enable us to become a great and glorious people. Withhold this, and you give us nothing." . . . " With all his acuteness, Mr. Wakefield has confounded two Hiings that are essentially distinct from each other, viz., ' the love of Eng- land,' and the ' love of her Empire,' or Govern?nent, in the sense of a strong desire to be, or to continue, under it. The love of England — meaning the love ol the country, . • its people, of its institutions, aiid of its prosperity — is a generr>us and manly feeling, whicij, I am most happy to admit with Mr. Wakefield, is the characteristic of all British Cohmies ; and so far from there being anything either strange or un- accountable in it, as Mr. W. seems to imagine, it is the most natural thing in the world. For, according to the Scotch proverb, ' Blood is thicker than water,' or, in other words, ' we shall always be more kiudly-allectioned towards our own kindred, our own country, our oivn race, than cowards mere strangers or foreigners,' 2^'>'ovided ahv t)/r, that no disturbing element shall have intervened, as in the case of the War of Independence in America." " lint Mr. W^akelield is decidedly in the wrong in taking it for granted, as he does, that this love of England, which is both natural and universal in British Colonies, necessarily implies a desire to hve under her Government, as mere Dependencies of her Empire." Be it so. Why not welcome the proposition which is ready to bo entertained, of a new system founded on the principle ^f "Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality ? " England does not wish to 'jomrn nor T * nate, if a better practical system is exhibited and its adoption d«sirefl. " There is a previotts question to be answered — viz., ' Is the exf^» sion of the Empire of the Mother Country compatible with the attain- ment of the other and legitimate ends of colonization?" And this i.s a question I have no hesitation in answering in the negative — it |tf> not." . . . There is a general hope and impression that the system of Confodora- tion will remove these disadvf»ntapfes. Mltf not ihk have been in Dr. Lang's mind when he wrote as fol'ovv?: — "The disadvantages in question arise principally from the iguornnce • ., F M 66 EMPIRE TOO EXTENSIVE ! itammm.'.: fliW and io'lilTorence of the dominant country about the position and inte- rests of the Dependency. . . . " Thoj'o is, I firndy believe, a career of national greatness and glory for Great Britain, in friendly alliance and co-operation with Australia — free and independent — such as her most sanguine orators and poets have never imagined." As an inducement for Britain to listen to his counsels, we read : — " It is as like a universal Empire as possible, and there/ore the niore likely to he dism.emhered, as it is cnlhd, very shortly. For Divine Providence has, for the last thirteen hundred and fifty years — that is, ever since the Roman Emjiire, or fourth universal monarchy, fell — set its face against the estaljlishment of anything like another universal Empire or fifth monarchy upon earth ; consequently, the more ex- tensive any Empire l^ecomes, and the more closely it api)roaclie3 to universality, we have every reason to believe that it is only the nearer its fall or dismemberment." . . . •' Now it a])pears to me that we are approaching a somewhat similar crisis in. the history of the British Empire at the present moment. For a long time past we have been adding province to province in India, till our Empire in that country now comprises a hundred and eighty millions of people — about an eighth part of the whole human race ! We have also been adding province to province in Africa. We have humbled China, and ijlanted a Colony, as we call it by courtesy, and a line of posts on her frontier. We have annexed ^g^^ Zealand to our Australasian Dominion ; and we have added Aden, Singa])ore, and Labuan, to our Empire in the East ; an)fl to the original Thirteen States as the numerous Colonies of Britain do to the United Kingdom. They are, to all intents and purposes, the Colonies of the United States ; for, as far as the relation of .» Mother Country :ind a Colony i^ concerned, it is of no importanct! whatever wheth.or the latter is planted on the «ame Coutiubut or Island as the Mother Country, or 'w separated from 70 UNITED STATES AS COLONIZERS. it by vast tracts of intervening ocean. This idea, T perceive, has since been i)ut forth by John Arthur Roeliuck, Esq., in his work entitled ' The Colonies of England,' with a view to contrast the progress and extent of colonization in the United States, with its progress and ex- tent in the liritish Empire, since the peace of 1 783 ; " Mr. Roebuck, however, is represented as saying : — " ' The Colony would, in] such a case, continue to feel towards the Mother Country with kindness and respect ; a close union would exist between tlieni, and all their mutual relations would be so ordered as to conduce to the welfare of both.' . . . The following extract presents admirable proof of the advantage, the crying call, for a Union of the British Dominions : — " Surely, then, if the art of colonization has been lost, as it seems to have been, la old England, it has been found again in New England ; for I question whether even the ancient Greeks ever surpassed the New Englunilers in that noble art, that heroic work. " What then is the reason — for there surely must be some ade- quate reason — for the prodigious difTcrcnce in the two results ? Why, the answer is plain and obvious to the meanest capacity. America, like the ancient Greeks, gives her Colonies freedom and independence from the first ; whereas Great Britain, until a very recent period, uniformly withheld anything like manly freedom from her Colonies, treated them with the coldest neglect and the grossest injustice, and harassed and op- pressed them in every possible way with the incubus and the curse of her Colonial Office. Yes ; instead of insulting her Colonies by offering them what certain sol-disant Colonial reformers in England think it would be a great deal indeed for Great Britain to oCer hers — viz., municipal in- dependence — which signifies allowing them to manage for themselves in all litile matters, and leaving all important ones to be managed for thorn at home, or, in other words, the Colonial Office — instead of in- sulting her Colonies by offering them municipal independence, America gives them at once complete independence ; that is, the entire control of all matters affecting their interests, as men und as citizens, in every possible way. In short, America realizes the beau ideal which the ancient Lomans indignantly reminded the Corinthians was the implied condition of their own emigration — she makes her Colonies in every respect like herself ; she treats her Colonists not as her slaves or sub- jects, but as her equals." __ The followiug passage is particularly suggestive : — " Another great point of difference iuf tween the future National GROTIUS. ATAM S:.IlTn. 71 Government of Australia and that of the United States is that, whereas the possession and management of the waste lauds of the country are vested by the Constitution of the United States in the Federal Government, the waste lands of Australia would in all like- lihood remain in the possession and undt.'r the exclusive manage- ment of the Provincial Parliaments respectively. I cannot see that such a svstcm as that of the United States, in regard to the waste lands cf the country, could be adopted with propriety, or even with safety, in Australia. The Provincial Governments would be quite competent to manage the waste lands within their respective bounda- ries ; and I am confident they would never allow the funds accruing either from the management or the sales of these lands to be placed in a common Treasury, like that of the United States, to be divided rateably among the Provinces, according to the population of each, or a])plied to the general purposes of the National Government." We now proceed to extracts which show the kind of authorities on which Dr. Lang I'ests his audacious pretensions. The first quotations are from Grotius : — " An equality of condition cannot subsist between the citizens of the Mother Country and those of the Colonies. It becomes, there- fore, just and necessary that the latter should have a suitable compen- sation for the disadvantages of their situation, and for the re-estab- lishment of the equilibrium. Their liberty, therefore, ouglit to be augmented in proportion to the distance of the criuntries they inhabit, and the difficulties that stand in the way of their frequent communi- cation with those among whom the legislative body resides. " But that very authority ought necessarily to diminish in proportion as the number of the Colonists increases, or be abrogated when their wants cease. Everything, then, re-enters into the imperturbable order of nature ; political ties are formed by new conventions, and the rights of government are established on a new basis." The principle of Adam Smith was : — " If it was adopted, however. Great Britain would not only be im- mediately freed from the whole annual expense of the peace establish>- ment of the Colonies, but miyht settle with them such a treaty of commerce as loould effectually secure her a free trade more advan- tageous to the great body of the people, though less so to the merchants, than the monopoly which she at present enjoys. By thus parting good friends, the natural affection of the Colonies to the 72 FRANKLIN, U.S. C0N0RES3, BENTHAM. Mother Country, wliicli, perhajw, our late dissensions have well-nigh extinguished, would quickly revive. It might dispose them not only to respect, for whole centuries together, that treaty of commerce which they had concluded with us at j)arting, but to favour us in war as well as in trade, and, instead of turbulent and factious subjects, to become our most faithful, affectionate, and generous allies ; and the same sort of parental affection on the one side, and filial respect on the other, might revive between Great Britain and her Colonies, which used to subsist between the Colonies of ancient Greece and the Mother City from which they descended." " But the woi-ld has been, making great advances since the days of Adam Smith ; for the following generous and enlightened sentiment has appeared (as I have already had occasion to observe) in an ai-ticle on Australia in the leading journal of Europe, neai'ly eighteen years ago : — ' The people of England,Y' &c. [Already quoted twice !] *' ' Many,' says the celebrated Dr. Benjamin Franklin, in the pre- face to his pamphlet, entitled '* Considerations on the Nature and Extent of the Authority of the British Parliament," ' many will perhaps bo surprised to see the legislative authority of the British Parliament over the Colonies denied in every instance, . . . He entered upon them witfi a view and expectation of being able to trace some constitutional line between those cases in which we ought, and those in which we ought not, to acknowledge the power of Parlia- ment over us. In the prosecution of his inquiries he became fully convinced that such a line doth not exist ; and that there can be no medium between acknowledging and denying that power in all CASES.' , . . " The following is a Besolution of the Original American Congress on the same subject : ' That the foundation of English liberty, and of all free government, is a right in the people to participate in their Legislative Council ; and as the English Colonists are not represented, and from their local and other circumstances cannot properly he repre- sented^ in the British Parliament, they are entitled to a free and exclusive power of legislation in their several Provincial Legislatures, where their right of representation can alone be preserved in all cases of taxation and internal polity.' . . , " The famous Jeremy Bentham, in his pamphlet entitled, * Emanci- pate your Colonies,' addressed to the National Assembly of France, characterizes the scheme of Parliamentary Bepresentation for the Colonies in the following language : * Oh, hut they vnll send deputies : and those deputies loill govern us as much as we govern them.^ MERIVALE AND CARLYLE. 73 Illusion ! What is that but doubling the luischief instead of lessening it 1 To give youraelf a pretence for governing a million or two of strangers, you admit half a dozen. To govern a million or two of people you don't care about, you admit half a dozen people that don't care about you. To govern a set of people whose business you know nothing about, you encumber yourselves with half a dozen starers, who know nothing about yours. Is this fraternity ? Is this liberty and equality? . . . Nay, it is evident and indispn table that it was on this principle of freedom and independence, as far at least as their own internal government was concerned, that the British Colonies in America were originally formed ; for, considering the important national interests at stake in the matter, it is not less liiuniliating than it is melancholy to reflect, that, in the theory and practice of colonization, wc have actually been retrograding or going back as a people for the last two hundred and fifty years ! ' The fundamental idea,' observes Mr. Merivale, ' of the old or British Colonial policy appears to have been, that wherever a man went, he carried with him the rights of an Englishman, whatever these were supposed to be. . . This is remarkably proved by the fact, that representative government was seldom expressly granted in the early charters ; it was assumed by the Colonists as a matter of right.' . . . " There are still, indeed, individuals, both in our own and in other Mother Countries of Europe, who cling to the old fallacy of Empire, and regard either the actual or the possible loss of dominion over distant Colonies as an event in the highest degree to be deprecated and deplored. And it is singular enough that one should have to include among such persons — the adherents of an exploded system — so eminent a writer as Mr. Carlyle." As to the British right of property, and right to the future fruits of it, and to return for outlays in blood, enterprise, and money, we are coolly told : — " But Great Britain has received an ample compensation for her outlay in planting the Australian Colonies, in another and much more valuable form — in the magnificent outlet she has thereby established for her redundant population ; in the valuable and indefinitely extending market for her manufactured goods of all kinds which she lias thus oieated, and in the boundless field she has opened up for the production of the raw material required for her manufactures, and for the employ- ment of her home population. Assuredly, Great Britain has never expended any money for which she will receive an ampler return than she has already received, and will still continue to receive, for all time 74 PREPOSTEROUS DEMANDS. coming, from the expenditure slic incurred in the establishment of the Australian Colonies. Independently of the market for goods of all kinds which these Colonies afford to the IMotlier Country, to an extent unequalled in any other country of the same population in the world, Great Britain actually received from the Colony of New South Wales alone, during the first ten years, from the introduction of the system of selling the waste lands of the Colony, and devoting a large portion of the proceeds for the promotion of emigration, not less than a million sterling : the whole of which was exj)ended in relieving the Mother Country of a serious public burden by paying for the con- veyance of persons of tlie humbler classes from Great Britain and Ireland to New South Wales." A pretty relief, to take away our best stuff, if they are to be " relieved " fi-om allegiance and their labour no longer to increase the capital and productive i)owcrs, nor the strength, of the Empire ! He again harps thus discordantly : — " But even, although Great Britain had never received any pecu- niary or other com[)ensation for the expenditure she incurred in the establishment of the Australian Colonies, this would in no way have affected the right of tliese Colonies to their entire freedom and inde- pendence, on the attainment of their political majority. The slave has an alsolute right to his freedom, whetlier his master has cleared his purchase-money by him or not. The son, who has completed the twenty-first year of his age, has an absolute right to entire freedom from parental control, whatever his father may have expended oa his board and education. It is the law of nature and the ordinance of God, that the parent should provide for tiie child during his nonage, without entering him in his ledger as a debtor for the ex])ense of his up-bx"inging. If the jiarent has discharged his duty in the case, the child will dt^ligh'. to repay the obligation in whatever way he can. He will honour his Jather and mother, from the instinctive feeling of filial affection, as well as that his days may be long in the land which the Lord his God shall give him ; and so far from this feeling being extinguished by the mere fact of his being legally free from all parental control, it will still grow with his g.-owth and strengthen with his sti'ength. till, in the coarse of nature, he is called to deposit the remains of his venerated parent with sorrow in the grave." We are informed that a high authority declares this — viz. : " The advantage is, that the possession of this immense Empire by WEAKNESS OF THE MOTHER COUNTRY. 75 England ciuises tlio mere name of England to be a real and mighty Power — the greatest Tower that now exists in the world." But it is assumed that this is not merely be.^ide the mark, but vanity ; whereas it is sober aiul iiiiportaut truth that equally concerns the Colonists. ""Whether the latter are to &nrreudur their natural and hiherent rights, merely to gratify the vanity, or to minister to the self-im[iort- ancc of those who are at the centre of the system, is a question which, I conceive, admits but of one answer. It so completely sets aside the golden rule of doing to others as we should wish to be done by, that one can scarcely help feeling ashamed at hearing of such a proposition from any person calling himself an Englishman. Is it either just or right — for that is the question — that the best and dearest interests of any people should be compromised and sacrificed ; that their social progress should be impeded and retarded in an endless variety of ways ; that they should be refused their proper position among the nations, and degraded to a condition of pitiable and '"imiliating subserviency — in order to minister to the gratification ot this mean, contemptible vanity on the part of another people at the ends of the earth :" For what, I ask, are the British people better than we — the British Colonists of Australia — except tb it thoy are twenty to one of us ? But docs this give them any right, by the law of nature or the ordi- nance of God, to govern us? ... " Again, to talk of England keeping the peace of the world, while she has eight hundred millions of debt of her own, incurred almost exclusively through her generally unjust and unnecessary wars, is amusing enough , but it can surely be no reason why British Colonists, who have a natural and inherent right to nationality, should be forced to continue in the very suboi-dinatc and unsatisfactory condi- tion of mere dependents and vassals. '■' If thou niayest he made free" says the apostle Paul (^and the advice apphes to communities as well as to individuals), " use it rather. " . . Mr. Wakefield's jjrestige is merely another name for sJiadow : it has no substance in it, no real value. And although Earl Grey, in his elaborate but unsuccessful apology for his own maladministration of the Colonies, ostentatiously expresses his opinion that * the British Colonial Empire ought to be maintf ined, because much of the power and influence of Great Britain depends upon her having li»,rge Colonial Possessions in different parts of the world ;' as if that were anything to us. The question ia simply — What solid advantages does rvl^ ,'vS> ^1^ >.^.>> IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) ^^>^^. %^ / ^ (* !^ %> .V /; %• O / A f Photographic Sciences Corporation 2: WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTEk, N.Y. 14580 (716) 877-4503 ^^^. I 76 OBJECTS OF COLONIZATION. England really derive from her possession of such Dependencies as the Australian Colonies'? In answer to this question, the late Sir George Lewis, in Lis able and singularly honest work, on * The Govern- ment of Dependencies,' enumerates the advantages which a Parent State or • dominant country derives from its supremacy over a Dependency as follows : — ". . . 2. Assistance for military or naval purposes. — Such assistance was very frequently rendered by the earlier Colonists of America,»iii the wars of the Mother Country with France, which had then an extensive Empire in that country ; but no sach assistance could either be expected or would be necessary now. It is worthy of remark that tho celebrated Dr. Adam Smith considered the con- tributiou of revenue and military force as so essential to the very idea, of a Colony, that he regarded any Dependency as utterly valueless that did not contribute either the one or the other. His words are aa follows ; — " * Countries which contribute neither revenue nor military force towards the support of the Empire cannot be considex'ed as provinces. They may, perhaps, be considered as appendages, as a sort of splendid and showy equipage of the Empire.' " 3. Advantages to the dominant country from its trade with the Dependency. — Since t3ie commencement of the present Free Trade system, no special advantage can be derived by the Mother Countiy from this source." Is this true? May she not at least stipulate that she shall be laid under no special c^isadvantage J She might without effrontery. " 4. Facilities afforded by Dependencies io the dominant country for the emigraticn of its surplus poptdation, and for an advantageous employment of its capital. — Sir George Lewis admits, however, that in order to secure this advantage to the Mother Country, it is not necessary that the Colony should be a Dependency of the Parent State. " Sir George Lewis also enumerates the advantages derivable by a Dependency from its dependence on the dominant country, under the following heads, viz. : — " 1. Protection by the dominant country. . . "2. Pecuniary assistance by the dominant country. . . " 3. Commercial advantages . . . " There ivS therefore not one substantial advantage derivable, either by the Mother Country on the one hand, or by the Australian Colonies TRADE WITH COLONIES. 77 be ihat not •ent ya the Iher lies on the other, from the continuance of the present connexion of domination and dependency. The only advantage remaiiilng to the Mother Country is a merely imaginary one — the glory of the thing." Surely, surely, this is exaggeration and ol^souration. The question, however, is not mainly one of hard cold calculable " advantage." See how the Doctor himself writes about what Colonies take com- pared with ex-Colonies : — ^' Whcfi it is considered that every inhabitant of the United States consumes only about seven shilrngs and sixpence worth of British pro- duce and manufactures annually, whereas every inhabitant of the Austra- lian Colonies consumes from seven to ten pounds worth — [population of New South Wales in 18G9 - 485,358; imports, .£3,544,285, or £7 7s. per head]-— the loss which Great Britain sustains in this way must be immense." The following is noteworthy, not because of the dangerous mistake of Sir H. Parnell, but for the exhibition it gives of the vast sums the United Kingdom has spent on Colonies which yet the Australian preacher from the golden rule would snatch away without compensation, using such language as w^ have seen. " ' With respect to Canada (including our other Possessions on the Continent of North America), ' observes the late Sir Henry Parnell, ' no case can be made out to show that we should not have every commercial advantage we are supposed now to have, if it were made an independent State. Neither our manufactures, foreign commerce, nor shipping, would be injured by such a measure. On the other hand, what has the nation lost by Canada ? Fifty or sixty millions have already been expended.' " I do doubt the following very, very much : — "No one now really doubts that the separation of our North American Colonies has been, in an economical sense, advantageous to us. And yet precisely the same arguments are current at this very day respecting the superior profit of Colonial commerce, and the wealth arising from Colonial domination, which were in every one's mouth before that great event had occurred, and by its results con- founded all such calculations. So easily does our reason contrive to forget the strongest lessons, or to evade their force, when prejudice and love of power warp it in the contrary direction. , • . 78 EMIGRATION. " The independence of the American Colonies furnishes an apt illus- tration ; for although the Continental nations believed that this change had struck a deadly blow at England, they soon forgot their false theory Avhen they observed the inexhaustible resources which she displayed during the French war." Not resources in sons of her own be it remembered and pondered. Let us, per contra, think how mighty a Confederation would have existed if the whole English-speaking people had been always and until now happily united. There is yet a " next best " open. " The grand question of the day in England is|that of Emigration: and considering that the po'mlation of the United Kingdom is increasing at the rate of a quarter of a million per annum, while the difficulty of obtaining employment and comfortable subsistence for the industrious classes is also constantly increasing, it_is no matter of wonder that that question should be one of intense interest to every lover of his country. How, then, it will be asked, will Australia respond to the desires and necessities of the Mother Country, whether as a series of separate Colonies, as at present, or as a sovereign and independent State? These two questions I shall endeavour to answer consecutively." " So early as the year 1835, when the Colony of New South Wales extended from Cape Capricorn to Bass's Straits, and the fund arising from the sale of its waste lands on the Wakefield principle — that is, ap- propriating the proceeds for the promotion of emigration — was becom- ing considerable, I published a series of papers in Sydney, pointing out the paramount importance of that fund for insuring the welfare and advancement of the Colony, through the progressive introduction into its territory of numerous industrious and virtuous fanvlles and indi- viduals from the Mother Country. In these papers I laid down and advocated the two following principles, viz. : — 1st. That the waste lands of Australia were not the property of the actual Colonists, but of all the inhabitants of the British Empire ; and 2nd. That the best mode of expeading the funds accruing from the sale of these lands was in the promotion of the emigration of industrious and virtuous families and individuals from the Mother Country to Australia, in numbers proportioned to the population of each of the three kingdoms respec- tively." . . . Would the loss described, not too strongly, in the following have been avoided, or will there be avoidance in future, as the effect of severance ? I fear not. ANTI-IMMIGIUTION LEAGUE. 79 And aste but )est was ilies jers fcec- lave of " And the result is precisely what might have been anticipated — colonization directs itself towards the waste lands of the United States, while those of the British Colonies, with a niucli better climate, are passed by and disregarded. Witness the emigration from the United Kingdom during the years 1852 and 1853 : it amounted In 1352, to 368,764. In 1853, to 318,680. And whither did these emigrants direct their steps ? Why, not fewer than 224,000 in 1852, and 225,258 in 1853, emigrated from Great Britain and Ireland to the United States ; while the emigration to British America, during the same years, respectively, was in 1852, only 33,563 ; and in 1853, only 30,563 ; and to Australia, in 1852, 87,000; and in 1853, 59,931. Notwithstanding, therefore, the power- ful impulse that was given to emigration thrcugliout the United King- dom, l)y the discovery of gold in Australia, the full tide of emigration from Great Britain was still directed towards the United States, and the claims of the British Colonics, with all their superior advantages, were treated with derision. In one word, this humiliating state of things was entirely the result of bad government and the lust of empire on the part of Great Britain." Here is one reason why regard for the welfare of the Colonies should lead even separatists to hesitate and pause : — " There is a regular Anti - Immigration League in existence in Victoria, and there is a considerable number of persons of the same opinion in New South Wales. But I am happy to state that there is a large majority of the people of the latter Colony strongly in favour of an extensive immigration from the Mother Country, and strongly disposed to make the requisite sacriQce, in the way of a honua in land, for the accomplishment of so important an object." The Doctor is sound on this point : — " I hold it to be one of the urgent necessities of the times that a bonus in land should be held forth to all wbo can pay their own pas- sage to Australia ." Now, where would the lands be, or at whose disposal, if the Colonies go? Happily, all has not yet been ytmi away. See Par- liamentary Returns, 1870. What we now reproduce is " an owre true t^Ie " : — 80 NEGOTIATIONS, 1851 55. " A Draft Constitution had been drav.n np by the Legislative Council of New South Wales, in the year 1853, which was approved of and enacted by the Imjierial Parliament in 1855 ; the Colony granting Her Majesty a Civil List, and Her Majesty conceding, in lieu of it, to the Colonial Lc>stain from all mention of a feeling which, in the olden time at least, was always spoken of with honour. Yet, and in spite of the sneer at our old-fashioned faith, in spite of the cold water which such papers as the Times throw upon our professions, we do once more declare that love to England and to England's Queen is a principle so deeply felt in Canada, that the sentence which should condemn us to give up our allegiance would freeze the hearts of hundreds of thousands of Her Majesty's most faithful subjects. SADDEmjfG BEFIECTIONS. 99 to our Q,.„on, „r even the untldL T ^'T ',8^'** "'-r -"'"ion remotest of our villagos, they tol T ^^". ^"""""^ % '» "'o which says that our lie faTut ^^^i'? ■"" '" "'» '"^'^U-^ taunt t.onaf™™ gratitude for favou^'ftJl""'- ""'""' "^ P™'-'- -Neither in our Hoimo nf n^^ these question, thu, far " Jo ™, "ITf l" 'f ",'" """««'•■' «- of, of co„«e, they arc, hut our future 1 T\ ^""""''°''- ^'•"'^'l of vital interest, ,o fa'r as puUfc d LteT" " ""' '"' '""" '»?'- the midst of groat raateriarp™„erit; !, ™T™"'- ^'' '™"'' '" thr.ving, everything lookinrbS ^I "'", ''"r'""'"' '""'™»i"g ™d =peak- of changes wl.ich n„ w beti ' L w" """^ »'=""" *'"^''' oyes to tl,e handwriting onThe wan bt ., t ^"'"8"^ «l'»t our -private oonve«,.i„n°a„„u; friends b/ the fi",'^ "' "" •"'"P'"' which IS constantly agitated whW, ^/ "''''"'•'' *'"' 1»«tion solemnly answered, is,°Shan"tt ""^V°°" ''" ""^'^ l"" "-"d the home authoriti slomto Jbecir" " '""'"°"^ *=''''''tion of of season-that whenever™: wS 1 "'" "''^™ -" «»' Country we are most welcome tT dt o/rT,/"''"" ""= ^•'"'- TZ> tiii this coid hint be crgL^tl* Xli^^ Q , , . "^ CAKADIAN." - S^'.T:;,,- r ",- v;: - "• ~- - " Great Britain and Australia." ''""' ^"*^' ^'^^'^ THE PERIOD OF DRIFT. 101 THE AUTnOR OF " CTXX'S BARY " OX IMPKPJAL FEDIOIIATION. P.S.— 'Janiauy .3, 1871. — I Iuivm just rccoivod tho Contempt Romew for this nioutli, and roiul with siiipnhir ploasure tho article orary on (( Imperial Federalifini" by the autlior of " Ginx's IJaby." This oh)(iuoiit iiul appeal oiij^hfc 1)0 circiiUited widely, — if possible, in tho form of a cheap imniphlet. iJy oblifi;iiip^ permission of Messrs. Strahan, wc arc enabled to give the followinjj!: dippinc^s ; but the whole requires to bo read, m order to appreciate its vigour and force. Any one who looks at tho several speeches and writings which mark tho rapid growth and the strong sot of popular tjpinion on this now de- veloped subject of agitation, must be struck with their quite uuconscious, but therefore most encouraging, accord even in language. In connexion with the subject of a dear friend's pamphlet, mentioned on page JG, and with the sul)ject of Emigration, reference is made to the article in another January monthly, " To what Extent is England Prosperous? " by Henry Fawcett, M.P. " Th's is tho period of Drift. Swept along by wind and current, our political and social tendencies appear to be escaping from our govern- ance, and to bo manoeuvred by fate. It needs no deep mind to dis- cover it. Capping leaded leaders in our daily papers, or suggesting to the " artists " of some of the many vulgar comics — sad misnomer ! — a subject of grotesque satire, tho idea of Drifting is clearly recognized as a thing of the age. Drifting into war, drifting into a conference, drifting into danger, drifting into Church and State controversy, drift- ing to imperial dissolution — tho terra is now a favourite one to apply to our political movement — the tendency even seems to be favourably acquiesced in. DmFriNG TO Imperial Dissolution : I wish before heaven that I could lay hold and arrest the movement with a good, strong Samson's or Cromwell's hand 1 I cannot ; but I have a voice, and I appeal from the politicians to the people of the Empire. Driftwood politicians ; sweeping on before the breath of popularity — with uo stern, proud h 102 IMPERIAL FEDERALISM. principles to rule their motions — both parties of them eddying round and round hero in a Reform whirlwind, tossed out of the way there by an Irish gust, spun about again by a German-French tempest, inanely watching the play of a Russian nor'-oaster — Mid lik'mn it ! seemina; r^ontented with that lot, absolutely looking for the winds and currents as gof' ^ends to be yielded to — glad if they blow hard enough to make it clear that it is the way they mus^^^ go, J pray you, any sensible by- stander, any interested JJriton, Avhose own and his children's fato is in the boat with these helmsmen ; and even you, captain and mates ! do you call this statesmanship or farce ? Ought not these men to annouuoe boldly in the face of us all : " This and this is our design — this is our best gospel in such and such a matter : there is the point we mean to try to reach, blow wind or run tide over so strongly against us : if you don't approve of our intentions, they are honourable, and in all honesty don't expect us to carry out any other. Here we resign to any man who has another plan, if you think it a better one. Our scheme is true, we believe, and will hold on to be true, though the very foundations of the world were dis- covered ; and till we can preach it fairly into your convictions, we shall cease to be responsible for the steering ? " If we get not soon some such determined and specific-minded captains, brother-citizens, we are lost. At this moment \re are drifting to the disintegrati' a of our Empire. Few believe it. Few have soen the greai currents sweeping away off beyond the horizon, commencing their vast circuits even at the anti- podes ', but ere long the cyclone will burst upon us, and every one, especially the chief officers, will acknowledge a Divine wind, and calmly resign themselves to see the vessel rojked and blown to pieces, saving themselves, no doubt, " some on boaids, and some on broken pieces of the ship. And so it came to pass that they ." I should like to know where our island of Melita will be, and whether the barbarians are likely to be civil. Meantime, I pray your earnest attention to the matters hereafter to be submitted, too conscious that my voice is weak in contest with the now boiiierous elements of Drift, but having faith in my soul that these matters are serious and true. . . . I define Imperial Federalism to be : The doctrine of a legislative union, in the form of a Confederation, of each subordinate self-govern- ing community which is now included within the British Empire. To preserve that Empire intact, on the ground that such a policy is not only Imperial, but d"3tated by the selfish interest of each constituent ; to combine in some flexible and comprehensive system the great con- PROGRESS OF FEDERATION. 103 of I to Lns ihe ik .0 course of subordinato States whereof our Empire is composed, for the benefit of all ; and lastly, to confirm to every individual member of tue Imperial Community those rights and privileges to which he is born —rights and privileges justly inalienable from himself or his children : these three things must be at once the aim and the reason for Imperial Federahsm. The gravity of the questions depending on this doctrine, every day pressing more urgently for solution, must ere long drive it to the front rank of political movement. "What shall our Empire be fifty years hence ? What shall Ijccome of those sons and daughters gone from our bosom to far-off territories, bearing with them a portion of our strength, our civilization, our freedom, our love of Motherland ? Who are to be the legatees of the vastest national estate ever accumulated in one sovereign hand ? Are our Colonies destined to be our weakness or our strength — to sap or to solidify our power ? Is it the wisest policy to smooth the way to Imperial dissolution, or our duty and policy together, by every honest means, by every honourable bond, to perpetuate Imperial integriry ? Ara the hopes of unborn generations most engaged in the maintenance of an united Empire, or the develop- ment of separate nations ? Such, and a hundred other questions, crop up in the hitherto unexplored ^'cgions of the subject designated by me Imperial Federalism. . . . I have said that Federation exists already within the Queen's do- minions. In 1850 the proposal to confederate the British North American Provinces is stated to have been regarded by Canadian Btatcsmeu "as visionary." In 1807 it was adopted throughout thoso vast provinces and liy the Imperial Government. . . . In the West Indies, Sir Benjamin Pyne has recently been able to induce several islands to unite upon a Confederation scheme, which will receive the sanction of the Home Government. Following these accomplished facts, the principle of Federalism has naturally found its way to Australia, where, as we shall directly see, it has assumed a serious aspect. But the idea has not been allowed to float about and drop its seeds only on the extremities of the Empire. From them it has been borne home to ourselves, and has begun to ger- minate in Ireland. There, though perhaps fostered more by disaffec- tion than the spirit of patriotism, it would yet be the most wan*on prejudice to permit its infelicitous associations to distort our judgment of its political ;>roniiscs. It may, perhaps, hereafter be shown that some of the most urgent reasons for a federation of the Empire lie at ^2 '*-^,, 104 HOME FEELING. r ti u pi Is i' I i; home, oucl are not only to be sought in the necessities or the aspirations of our Colonial provinces. ... Turn where we will, we find Britain flourishing by the help of hep own offspring — toiling, tilling, trading in and from her distant pro- vinces. To every clime have her advc turous sons borne the civiliza- tion along with the enterprise of thoii- race. Prairies and deserts have changed their features, and frcii their rich unnumbered acres has been brought the blessed food for millions at home. Noi' this alone. The thoughtful workman here looks out with hopeful pride to communities of grovving wealth and power, whose increasing necessities daily add to the demanus for the products of his labour. They provide him with food, they provide him with staples of manufacture, they provide liim with work, and they offer iiim, should he aim at higher things, the safest and most inviting field for his energies. To know that wherever he goes he still retains his English rights, still is safe under English protection, may at any time return and lie down to rest a Citizen in his English home — is not this to make him feel the true value uf an Imperial destiny ? Is not this to give courage to the men and women who otherwise would perish here in the hopeless rivalry of wretchedness? Is not this a true, righteous, practical thing to devise and confirm for the good of every living soul within these crowded kingdoms ? What would not Germany give for such another Empire as Australia? What energy or money, or political and legislative zeal, or commercial enterprise, would she not lavish in establishing and riveting her rela- tions with such a Colony? What a strength would she not draw from that young strong son ? And we ! . . . It has of late years been the apparent policy of our Government, whether in Whig d Tory hands, to encourage independence in our greater provinces, especially independence of us in the matter ot expense, this being most fatally the prime reason ; a proper thing to encourap-e if it means a vigorous, self-reliant energy and life, but an ignoble and foolish policy if thereby is instigated a factious disavowal of Imperial relations. Yet ihe clumsy management of two or three Secretaries of State has nearly brought, us to the latter point. But to give to each province the maximum of independent action, and yet preserve for it and for the Empire at large the maximum of mutual aid and benefit, is a problem that seems not to have occurred to, far less to have been attempted by, these summary statesmen. This is the exact problem whicLv I venture to affirm, Imperial Federalism alone can solvo., . . . An elttborate paper, contributed to the Neio York Herald of July MOVEMENTS IN THE COLONIES. 105 6th, and admitted by Canadian papers to be partly based on fact, con- tains some singular disclosures. Questionable as is the authority, the allegations are so specific and important as to demand attention. Ac- cording to this statement, an Independence party have for some years been organizing treason in Canada. . . . ■ [Who will object to this manly word ?] Is it possible that much manoeuvring of the Cabinet on Colonial questions was due to such tricksters — nay. are there any of them in the Colonial Office ? This office seems to me, more than any depart ment of State, to need a visit from a strong reformer with a good broom. Two or three times does the writer reiterate the allegations about co-conspirators in England. For instance : — " On the day tha* Mr. Huntington and Mr. Young held their Waterloo meeting, assurances were received , rom tlieir friends in Eng- land that the Gladstone Cabinet could he depended upon to carry out the 2iolicy of independe7iceJ' Again : — " In the fall of 1869 very positive assurances were forwarded to Canada by friends tvho could speak send-officially that the English Administration had resolved on the following programme with regard to Canada : — 1. The withdrawal of the Imperial forces. 2. The cessa- tion of the system of Imperial guarantee. 3. The declaration of the independence of Canada at the earliest possible moment." No one who has watched the details of our recent intercourse with the Dominion will be disposed to think the above statements impro- bable. I deem it my duty to insert them here that they may be distinctly contradicted if untrue. This looks like Drift again, only with a hope that Dr'ft will be in a certain direction. We are exposed to the possibility of waking up unexpectedly to find our Empire slipped away in a night ; cut loose by our statesmen. No indifferent reason for an immediate decision of the public upon the nature of our future pohcy. The New Zealand case is too fresh in every one's mind to require that I should do more than refer to it. It proved by one example how delicate were the relations between ourselves and the whole of the Pacific Colonies. . . . The Colony raised its own forces and repressed the insurrection, but it bitterly resented the cold inllexibility of the English Cabinet, not less than Lord Granville's recommendation to acknowledge within the Queen's dominions the sovereignty of a Maori chief ! Some of 106 THE QUESTION IN AUSTRALIA. H Is J the first men of the Colony began to look, as its only hope, to junction with the United States, who were certain to supply necessary forces to defend any member of their confederacy. The Imperial Government was successfully thi'eatened with the alternative of help or secession. Under the fear and pressure of pubhc opinion at home. Lord Granville yielded only at the latest hour before the fatal telegram was to hare been sent to the New Zealand Government. Within the lai-t month significant news has reached this country from Australia. . , . When the disintegration of our Empire is recommended by a Royal Commission,* it is time to consider whether Her Majesty is to be Queen only of Groat Britain or an Imperial Sovereign. The proposal of the Victoria statesmen is unpractical. Such a relation of independent " sovereignties " could not be maintained in this age, and we have seen even in democratic America how the attempt to assert State sovereignty against con- federated power was stifled in blood. The Australians will look to one or other cf the great leading Powers of the Anglo-Saxon race ; and a continuance of our repulsive pohcy will drive them, not to inde- pendence, but to the United States. The quaint warning of an American diplomatist to a political friend of mine is not so exagj, crated as might be supposed : " The United States is watching, and I guess she'll jnck up everything you let drop^ Not another nation under heaven is so suicidally regardless of the pillars of its power. Before such schemes are further elaborated, may not we and the Australian Colonies judiciously consider what claiais the Imperial Government, representing the British nation, has upon those provinces ? Colonial Ministers acting under the Crown have from time to time constituted small patches of society, excised from our own community, the absolute owners of property held, in all moral and political honesty, in trust for the people and Government of these islands ; for it was won and maintained by our adventure and sacrifice. A slip of an Imperial pen has unreservedly transferred whole provinces to those casual com- munities ; but this has been done with the implied trust that they should be held and used only in harmony with Imperial interests. No Minister or Government had the power to confer more. These terri- tories, from which we might have drawn Imperial revenues, ar3 now administered solely in the interest of the settlers. We exact from them • I copy the First Report in extenso, from the Launreston Examiner of Nov. 6, at tha end of these clippinga. COLONIAL "destiny." 107 [o li- no direct pecuniary profit. They have been the gift by which we meant to reward the enterprise of our adventurous sons. But they must not suppose that they have the right to divest tliem of the Im- perial dominium. They hold them as our fellow- citizens, on the basis of their citizenship, and against the Imperial will they cannot assume the right of removing them from our sovereignty. Every man, woman, and child in these islands has a right and voice in the future position of our Colonies ; the sooner they and we understand it the better for all. The " unwashed " millions may claim their interest in the matter, and insist that careless statesmanship and intemperate politics shall hot jeopardise the enormous stake they have in the integrity of our dominions. If anybody should represent that in permitting our Colonies to sepa- rate from us we and they should be fulfilling our destiny, my retort is that destiny appears very much to be under the control of men : within certain limits our destiny is what we make it. . . . How much we have to gain in time of peace by the consolidation of Imperial connexions it is needless here at any length to recall. The arguments used in support of emigration — the proofs adduced of mutual profit from intercourse and trade — are only strengthened when we con- sider their bearing under a more organized and complete union. Should a federal system be devised, whereby every Colony has its rightful place and representation in the Imperial connexion, whereby to every Colonist was assured Imperial citizenship, with all its resultant rights of protection and freedom, it is impossible but that the ideal distinctions between "Home" and " the Colonies" would vanish away. Instead of hearing ignorant men among the uninstructed classes, and unwise men among the instructed classes, speak of an emigrant as " an exile," and our birthright estates beyond the seas as " foreign lands,' we should know no difference between England, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, and Australia, except the divisions of spaee, and no boundary of " Home " other than the limits of our Empire. . . . The timidity of wealth, as well as that of thinking labour and per- sonality, to which I have already alluded, partly arises from the un- certainty of our relations to our Colonies, which, along with consider- able ignorance regarding the Colonies themselves, makes the capitalist hesitate to trust his money in Colonial enterprises. If Canada is likely to become independent, if New Zealand is any day to go off in a pet, who can foresee what the value of their securities, or their railways, or their public works or p'*ivate speculations will be ? But confirmed in federal union, with ultimate resort to federal courts, with mora con- 108 IMPERIAL BURDENS. stant intercourse and a permanent official representation at the Imperial capital — with the whole system of our English business ex- panded, its banks, trades, companies, agencies, communicating and acting together within the Empire as they now do within Great Britain — we foresee in Federalism a promise of development for our wealth hitherto unconceived by the most dreamy worshipper of Plutus. And the possibility has been concluded by the steam and telegraph, which have destroyed the obstacles of distance. The Colonies also would gain their advantage from the new relation, in the ready inflow of capital for all purposes of development. Not only in this way would the wealth of the Empire be quickened into more general circulation, but from the Imperial point of view Federalism promises to settle in the happiest way the difficulties arising through the unequal incidence of the burthens of Imperial ex- pense. I do not here advert to the National Debt — a subject which would need special arrangements under any system of federation. One of the prime conditions of federation would be that the charges in matters of common interest should be equally borne, those of more im- mediate concern to any member of the confederacy being left to the adjudication of its local Government. Under this arrangement English- men in England could no longer complain that they were unfairly taxed for the benefit of Englishm.en in America, or Africa, or Australia ; for even granting that at any period any single member of theconfedera-y should need peculiar assistance, its constant contribution to the Im- perial exchequer would in the end more than outweigh the temporary obligation. . . . Measures of Imperial, national, or Colonial importance are hustled out of the way by one or two, sometimes, of secondary consequence, which have happened to engage popular sympathies. Here is the. secret of Ministerial worship of Drift. Some of the most crying evils of the day retain their vicious power, some of the most needful reforms are unaccomplished, because there are limits to legislative time and human endurance. If this pressure continues in anything like the present ratio of increase, the Empire must perish of congestion of the brain. . . . It is worth while to observe the discrepancy between the numbers arising out of the three kingdoms. The proportion of English statutes is too largely in excess of those from Scotland and Ireland to be accounted for simply by the disproportion of population, wealth, and prosperity. It must be taken that from either of the lesser provinces there would, in the event of greater legislative facilities, be more y *," id d BUSINESS IN PARLIAMENT. 109 legislation, and the activity of legislation is a better sign for a country tlian its inertness. Conversely, I assume that the deficiency of legislation of the kind here under discussion, for two countries like Scotland and Ireland, is, in part, fairly attributable to a deficiency of fecilitiea for accomplishing it. Those Acts of a quasi-imperial character termed " Public and General Statutes," yield the following results, allowing to the descrip- tion Imperial the widest scope : — Imperial statutes — e.g., Army, Navy, Revenue, iX'i/ia iX/C* ••• ••• Sfft ••» ••• * * » ••• ••• Technical statutes — amending laws or affecting legal questions, &c. (these might be either local or Imperial) Local statutes : — England 2G Ireland IG Scotland 7 India '^ 45 » » M • • • • • ■ England and Ireland Total 1 Hence, had there existed an Imperial Parliament and separate local Governments in England, Scotland, and Ireland, less than one- half of the Public General Statutes would have come within the province of Imperial legislation — that is, 45 out of 97. The result upon the whole legislation is, that out of 293 Acts there were — ••• *•• ••• ••• ••• •*• ••• Imperial... Technical English ... Irish Scotch Indian England and Ireland together • * • • • • • ■ • • • • »•• ••• ••• • • • • • • • • • • • • 4 • • • • • «•• ••• ••• ... 48 ... 15 ... 1G6 35 20 9 Total 293 Less than one-sixth in number of all the Acts of last session could no THE COLONIAL OFFICE. ■■ •*^-- ■'t m be characterized as Imperial ; the rest w je properly referable to the localities immediately affected by them.* . . . An office, presided over by a shifting partizan, however able, however honest, however industrious — actually conducted by a per- manent staff, seldom, if ever, selected for any reputation of experi- ence in colonial life — an office, to visit which is for a Colonist like reconnoitring an enemy — to negotiate wi^^^h which is like a war parley, and to assault which needs almost a forlorn hope and a battery — is, spite of any brilliant abilities existing in it, incapable of discharging with success the infinitely varied, numerous, delicate, and d(jtailed duties essential to its business. To every Colony, each with its own wrongs or rights or difficulties, such an offce is sure to a])pear unwise or tyrannical, because, in its very constitution, its aspect is to them foreign. Their delegates do not meet officials from their own colony — they meet bigoted domestic Englishmen. Not infrequently, before they can open a negotiation, or even make a statement, they are obliged to give imperfect instruction in the con- ditions of the people or places to be the subject of official attention. This cannot continue long. The Colonies must have better audience at Whitehall, or they will have done knocking at our doors. , , . A senate or parliament of representatives from every province, deliberating in public, and acting on the decision of the majority, would of necessity satisfy all the objections to the present system. All other schemes, such as that of a representative Colonial Council, Colonist Ministers, limited representation in the Imperial Parlia- ment, and so forth, dwindle before the practical simplicity of federal union. * I had niyaelf made a similar analysis for the Sessions 1869 and 1870. It was not made with great nicety, but is suflEicieatly accurate, and apropos to Bubjoin :— Acta. 1869. 1870. England 49 35 Ireland 10 16 England and Ireland 8 5 United Kingdom 34 38 Man, &c 4 India 9 3 Colonies 4 3 :"! Private Acts 117 171 112 181 288 293 PBDEBATIO.V NOT A DREAM. m liberty, anTfosteriti ll r "T"""^ "°''^' P"'^^""^ P^^O""' of Imperial » ndol r ""'^P''"*""''' ''Wlo in enlarging the scope I have sl^!° , /'"' '"■""«"' '" ""* P'-'y "f I>»1«™1 loyalty. trcatmen eno "m,!^ Federation, Without pretence of exhaustive inq.^ri„T'trroS ' T """" '''" '" P™™ *« ''^«'™W«ty of impo We*Tf3t ,::[ fr;"""*' '^«''"''«<"' ^o feasible or I have a^an^ed I "^Z^l .tl'^ Tj'^ *"' ^ f " '"-' '""' dreamed nlnn,i +i.« Z , , "^^^^ Bismarck ten years ajro CTondtloth? , "''""■"■"^^ °' "-^^^ wondrous and terrible ys, would he not have been consigned to some careful asylum ? " 112 ''! i whose inspiration dangers are roillinglg faced and privations cheerfully borne in the sacred name of country. " 4. We cannot doubt that it is the destiny of the Australian Colonies to 2^ursiie a similar career, and their ditty to prepare for it. They possess resources and territory which fit them to become in the end a great Umpire; they are occupied by a poi)ulatioii already larger than the population of many sovereign States, and they yield a revenue greater than the revenue of six of the Kingdoms of Europe ; and we believe they share the sentiments, which may be noted as among the most subtile and pervading influences of (jur century, the desire to perfect the union ami autonomy of peoples of the same origin. \a " II. — Best Means of Effecting a Union. " 5. The form which a Federal Union ought to assume, and the time at which it ought to be brought into operation, are subjects which must be reserved for a Conference of Colonial Delegates accredited by the respective Governments and Legislatures concerned. " 6. In approaching tho second question referred to us, however — the best means of effecting a union — it is necessary to point out that a federal compact for Legislative purposes may represent widely different ideas and measures of power. The Canadian Dominion furnishes the 114 FIRST REPORT OF i most perfect example of Fodornted Colonies. Canada, Nova Scotia, Now IJrunswick, and rrinco Edward's Fsland enjoyed constitutions substantially the some as ours, and wore, consequently, under the control of Governments responsible only to the local Legislatures. For the [mrpose of attaining the incro;ised vigour and authority which result from union, those Colonies agreed to abandon some of the powers enjoyed by the local Ijcgislatures in favour of a general Parliament and Government authorized to act on behalf of all the Confederated Colonies. A constitution was framed accordingly, under which each Colony retains a local Legislature, possessing complete control over purely local interests, and over the public lands of the Colony, while the Parliament and the Executive of the Dominion are charged with what may bo distinguished as national interests. We have printed in an Appendi.K the principal clauses of the Act of the Imperial Parlia- ment creating the Dominion of Canada, from which the functions of the local and general Legislatures respectively may bo seen in detail. On the other hand, there have been examples of a Federal Council having authority only on a few specified subjects, and on such other subjects as were afterwards from time to time referred to it by the local Legislatures. And there have been intermediate methods of more or less perfectly organized union. Opinion in the Colonies seems to be divided between these methods ; and a decision can only be arrived at after much debate and negotiation. " 7. But there is a preliminary work to be done, upon which there would probably be a little difference of opinion. To effect a union of any kind, binding alike upon all, an Imperial Act is necessary. Such an Act might be a permissive one, and might authorize the Queen, by proclamation, to call into existence a Federal Union of any two or more of the Australian Colonies as soon as they passed Acts in their respective Legislatures providing, in identical terms, for the powers and functions to be xercised by the General Legislature, and the distribution of seai^j md for the adjustment of the Colonial debts in case the nature of the union should render an adjustment necessary. The bases of these identical Acts would, of course, be determined by Conference between the Colonies. "8. The Permissive Act ought to provide for the admission of Colonies not joining the Union in the first instance, and might also provide a mode of withdrawal upon certain notice for any Colony dissatisfied. " 9. We are distinctly of opinion that ' the best means of accomplish- ing a union ' is to remove, by such an act, all legal impediments to it THE VICTORIA COMMISSION. 115 at loro 11 of Inch by or leir ers ;he in iby of ly it without delay, and leave the Colonies to determine, by negotiation anionj^ theinvsc'ves, how far, and how soon, they will avail themselves of the power thus conferred on them. " 10. The Conunission are disposed to re/javd it as part of tJie duty committtul to them to prepare a bill Jor transminsioH to the Imperial Parliament of the nature which they have indicated, and to ascertain by communication with the leiuliuf? public; men in the other Colonies whether they are disi)osed to co-operate in securinjji; the sanction of the Imperial "arliament for it. While all (picstions of Intercolonial rela- tions must be reserved for a Colonial Conference, it seems [plain that, unless those who make a proposal of this nature }]^ive it practical s!iai)0 and take means to ascertain how f.v it will be acceptable, it may prove as barren of results as many proposals on the same subject which have preceded it. They intend, therefore, to jii'int such a bill tvith their second Meport, " III. — Tub Neutrality of the Colonies in War. "11. A cognate question has been l)rought under the consideration of the Commission, as belonging to its general object — the existing relation of the Colonies to each other and to the Mother Country. *' 12. The British Colonies from which Imperial troops have been wholly loithdraxon j)resent the unprecedented jihenomenon of responsi- bility without either corresponding authority or adequate 2)rotection. They are as liable to all tiie hazards of war as the United Kingdom ; but they can influence the commencement or continuance of war no more than they can control the movements of the solar system; and they have no certain assurance of that aid against an enemy upon which integral portions of the United Kingdom can conlidently reckon. This is a relation so wanting in mutuality that it cannot safely be regarded as a lasting one, and it becomes necessary to consider how it may be so modified as to afibrd a greater security for 2Jcrmanence. " 13. It has been proposed to establish a Council of tlie Empire, whose advice must be taken before toar was declared. But this mea- sure is so Joreign to the genius and traditions of the British Constitu- tion, and presupposes so lar^^e an abandonment of its functions by the House of Commons, that we dismiss it from consideration. There remains, however, we think, more than one method by which the anomaly of the present system may be cured. " 14. It is a maxim of international law, that a sovereign State cannot be involved in war without its own consent, and that while two or more 116 VICTORIAN COMMISSION ON m States are subject to the same Crown, and allies in peace, they are not, therefore, necessarily associates in war if the one is njOt dependent on the other. " 15. The sovereignty of a State does not arise from its extent, or power, or pojmlation, cr form of govefnment. Morf than a century ago Vattel formulated the principle now universally accepted, that a small community may be a sovereij^n State no less than the most powerful Kingdom or Empire, and that dl sovereign States inherit the same rights and obligations. "16. ' Two sovereign States,' says Yattel, 'maybe subject to the same prince without any dependence on each other, and each may retain its rights as a free and sovereign State. The King of Prussia is Sovereign Prince of Neufchatel in Switzerland, without the princi- pality being in any manner united to his other dominions ; so that the people of Neufchatel, in virtue of their franchises, may serve a foreign Power at war with the King of Prussia, provided that uhe war be not on account of that principdity.' " 17. Wheaton and other modern public jurists have illustrated the same principle by the case of Hanover and England, which, though they were allied by personal union under the same Crown, were not necessarily associates in war, or responsible for each other. And the latest writers on international law cite the more modern and analogous case of the Ionian Islands, a State garrisoned by British troops, and having as chief magistrate a Lord High Commissioner appointed by the Queen, ond which was, notwithstanding, adjudged before the British Court of Admiralty (on a private question arising) to consti- tute a sovereign State not associated with the United Kingdom in the Crimean War. The last chief magistrate but one of this sovereign State was since promoted to the Governorship of the Colony of New South Wales, and thence to the Governorship of the domain of Canada. The last Lord High Commissioner was transferred to the Governor- ship of the Dependency of Jamaica. " 18. Without overlooking the distinction between Colonies con- sisting of men of the same origin as the population of the United Kingdom, and States inherited by the Crown, like Hanover, or obtained by treaty, like the Ionian Islands, it is suggested fOi." con- sideration whether the rule of international law under which they are declared neutrals in war would not become applicable to Colonies enjoying self-government by a single addition to their present power. { INDEPENDENCE AND SOVEREIGNTY. 117 pign I New »ada. lor- lited or Icon- are bnies " 19. The Colony of Victoria, for example, possesses a separate Parliament, Government, and distinguishing flag ; a separate naval and military establishment. All the public appointments are made by the local Government. The only oflBcer commissioned from Eng- land who exercises authority within its limits is the Queen's repre- sentative ; and in the Ionian Islands, while they were admittedly a sovereign State, the Queen's representative was appointed in the same manner. The single function of a sovereign State, as understood in international law, which the Colony does not exercise or possess, is the power of contracting obligations with other States. The want of this power alone distinguishes her 2>osition from that of States un- doubted li/ sovereign. "20. If the Queen were authorized by the Imperial Parliament to con- cede to the greater Colonies the right to make treaties, it is contended that they would fulfil the conditions constituting a sovereign State in as full and perfect a sense as any of the smaller States cited by public jurists to illustrate this rule of hmited responsibility. And the notable concession to the interests of peace and humanity made in our own day by the Great Pov)ers with respect to privateers and to merchant ship- ping renders it probable that they would not, on any inadequate grounds, refuse to recognize such States as falling under the rule. " 21. It must not be forgotten that this is a subject in which the interests of the Colonies and of the Mother Country are identical. British statesmen have long aimed not only to limit more and more the expenditure incurred for the defence of distant Colonies, but to with- draw more and more from all ostensible responsibility for their defence ; and they would probably see any honourable method of adjusting the present anomalous relations with no less satisfaction than we should. " 22. Nor would the recognition of the neutrality of the self-governed Colonies deprive them of the power of aiding the Mother Country in any just and neccesary war. On the contrary, it would enable them to aid her unth more dignity and effect ; as a sovereign State could of its own free will, and, at whatever period it thou flU proper, elect to be- come a party to the war. " 23. We are of opinion that this fubject ought to be brought under the notice of the Imperial Government. If the proposal should receive their sanction, they can ascertain the wishes of the American and African Colonies with respect to it, and finally take the necessary 118 VICTORIAN COMMISSION. (L.S.) ZZZT""' "™^"'""" - >""■' «f '"e p„,„e ,awof the THO. HOWARD FELLOWS. (As to Parts I. and II ) C. M'MAHON. JOHN MACGREGOR J. F. SULLIVAN. EDWARD LANGTON. (ExcGDt as to Part III ) J- J. CASEY. O. B, KERFERD. GRAHAM BERRY. JAS. GRAHAM." »> » » (( Town Hall, Melbourne, October 3, 1870. INDEX. Act 18 and 19 Vic, c. 54 African Colonies ... vii, 41, 66, Aggregative Tendency of the Age 19, Agriculture's Advantages to a Nation compared with Export Trades 6, 32, Alienirlng iv, 4, Allegiance 63, Anti-Ininiigration League Armaments ... 27, 36, 52, 76, "Atlantica" AusTKALiA 19, 22, 41, 67, 67, 70, 71, 73, 78, 79, 80, 82, 9'6, 99, 1U6, ,, Royal Commission 50, 106, „ Conference ... 19, 42, „ Emigrants to Bacon, lord Bent'iam, Jereviy Board, A Colonial ... 11,16, Bombay Butler, General Canada ... viii, 4, 18, 41, 50, 51, 53, 67, 77, 95, 97, 103, 105, Cape Route 10, page 81 117 85 Capital Carlyle " Cavete canes " Celtic Element Citizenship Coaling Stations Colomb, Captain Colonial Office Colonial Questions Colonies are Co-Partners ... 13j „ Benefits they confer 73, 75, 25, 2, 10, 15, 27, 82, V. 96 92 74 79 97 25 117 112 68 87 62 72 56 54 vi 113 vii 107 73 43 25 4 54 Z'^ 110 95 64 94 Benefits they receive 9, 35, 76, 94 Claim of vi, 14, 43, 46, Cost of Equalizing with Mother Country ... 12,34, E.xpectations from ... iii, Fears of ... 18,49, Improved Admini.stration of Loyalty of the 18, 33, 45, Neutiulity of Parties in the Representation in Cabinet... „ "Tributarj- States" Cobnisat'on 58, 68, 70, „ Object Grekk 68, Roman... ,, United States Colonists, How Welcomed ... 10, „ in London ... 88, " Colony " Defined >» it 50 77 65 37 98 63 98 115 93 16 81 72 61 70 69 69 110 84 60 Columbia, British " Coming Event, The," by Dr. Lang Commission at Melbourne Conference at Melbourne 19, 42, Contemporary Review Crown Rights Council of the Empire 16, 40, 84, Daily Revieto Debt, National 31, 35, 36, 75, 92, Defence of Colonies vii, 19, 46, 52, >> >> » PAGE 61 48 50 58 101 80 85 97 108 83 101 113 76 108 48 107 89 87 1 70 28 48 66 38 65 87 101 56 112 103 103 Dismemberment ... 21, 47, 66, Disloyalty 63, 105, 106, Dominance .. 65, "Drifting" 101, Edinburi)h Review Emigration ... iv, 10, 23, 33, 78, 80, 82, 87, 91, 94, 101 „ Fxmdfor ... 78,81, „ Report on " Empire " Defined Unification 35, 56, Council of the ... 16, Integrity of the 34, 41, too Extensive" „ "Weal of. True Policy 2, England, Love Towards ... 50, English Emigrants Fawcett, Professor, M.P Federation 16, 43, „ Australian 42, 83, 84, 103, „ Canadian We.st Indian of Empire viii, 43, 65, 70, 84, 101 „ of Engli.sh-8peaking Countries 78 Fiji 58, 69 Foreign Emigrants 87 Fortresses 9, 18 France ... 9, 10, 19, 22, 23, 25, 43, 72 ,, Colonies of 72 Franklin, Bei}jamin 72 Free Trade 9,21,33, 94 " Friends in Council," Author of ... 56 Froiulc, Mr 82 Future, The 10,25, 96 Gambia vii (hizettc, British Columbia 51 Germany 9, 10, 19, 25, 30, 43, 60, 85, 104 Ginx's Baby, k\xi\\or oi 101 Gladstone, Right Hon. W, E. vii, 47, 93 105 Glasgow, Sitvte of, and a Warning from 66 Good Words 56 Government, The ... 18, 41, 47, 67 120 l^xJEX. Qrahville, Earl ... 41, 97, P8, Great Nations iii, 19, Orey, Earl 75, Orotius Hansard v. Helps, Arthur, Mr Honours 12, " Imperial," The Word Improved Administration of Colonies Independence ... viii, 14, 19, 42, 43, 48, 50, 57, 63, 70, 93, India 20, 22, Institute, Royal Colonial Ionian Islands Irish Emigrants Ireland, Legi-slation for Isolation of Portions of the Empire 20, Johnston, Rev. Jas., Glasgow Land at Home „ Exchanging British for Colonial „ Grants Among Romans „ „ Requisite to Attract Immigrants „ Sale ^ avenue from „ Soutu "lian „ Transfei olonies „ Condition implied ... 3, „ Waste 23, 3'2, 38, 70, 78, 80, „ „ Return, Parliamentary Land, Rev. Dr. ... viii, 48, Leith Leith Herald Lewis, Sir George Liverpool as an Emigration Port iv, M'Culloch's Dictionary of Commerce Manchester, Duke of Melbourne Age Melbourne Argus Merivale, Mr. Misleadirg Impressions 18, 34, 58, 67, Montreal Gazette Mortality in Steamships " Mother Country " Monsell, Right Hon. Wm., M.P. ... *' Mutuality Awanting" National Spirit ... ix, 10, Nationality 63, 85, ,, Australian ... 58, Negotiations 27,49,55, Neufchatel New South Wales Land Sales ... „ ,, Constitution Nero York Herald New Zealand 49, 59, 66, 67, 97, Nobility, their Duties ... 11, Nova Scotia Northcote, Sir Stafford, M. P. Ocean Highways 46, Pall Mall Gazette Parliament V, 14, 15, 17, 27, 36, 37, 42, 108, Parnell, Sir Henry Party Question, Colonial is not 1, Pauperism, its Increase PAGE 106 85 84 71 85 66 39 40 63 104 35 93 116 87 viii 30 96 iv 39 69 79 89 89 3 44 82 79 67 iv iii 76 , 69 69 84 46 45 73 94 46 Sf 34 47 115 112 112 65 80 116 89 80 104 105 39 iv 84 53 50 115 77 47 96 PAOR Policy, Mistakes in 7, 32, 35, 38, 68, 102 Poor, their Interests Neglected 38, 66, 107 Population ... 9, 24, 30, 35, 43, 78 Pojmlar Opinion ... 68,85, 104 Protection, Adverse in Colonies ... iii Quarterly Review 50 Qukensland 41, 90 Roebuck, Mr 70 Royalty, its Opportunities 11 Russell, Earl 81 Russia ... 9, 20, 22, 23, 25, 30, 43 Sandon, Lord, M.P 85 Scotch Emigrants 87 Secretary and Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies 47 Separation 17, 42, 46, 49, 57, 66, 74, 75, 83, 93, 113 „ Loss to United Kingdom by 84 Smith, Adam 71, 76 Social Science Association ... 1, 30 South Australia 89 " Sovereign State," A 115 Steamships for Emigrants 86 Strength, National, Whence 19, 30 Supply and Demand 8 Tariffs, Hostile 5 Times, The ... 45, 52, 67, 68, 93, 99 Trade, Evils and Crises ... 6, 96 „ Its Instability 5 „ with the Colonies ...22,77, 94 „ Undue Favour for Export ... vi „ Value of Home ... 5, 112 "Trpison" 105 Troops, Withdrawal of 8, 50, 59, 67, 115 United Kingdom, Duties of 26, 35 „ Place of 24, 75, 85, 95 "Pride "of 33, 66 Rights of 38, 73 Rule of, Generous 3 „ Self-indnigence ... 31 ,, Wishes ... 58, 59 Un)CZD States 9, 10, 20, 23, 24, 30, 33, 36, 43, 56, 60, S3, 95, 98, 106, 113 „ Colonisation 69,. 71 „ Congress 72 „ Emigration to 77, 87 „ Facilities there ... 4 National Spirit ... 10 Relations with ... 24 their Separation a National L./Ss ... 77 Value of Emigrants iv, 91 Vattel 116 Victoria Commission v, 50, 106, 112 Wakefield, Mr. ... 65, 75, 78 War ... 21, 31, 45, 49, 60, 78, 82 Wellington Independent 49 West garth, Mr 93 Wodehome, Sir Philip 86 Working Classes 4, 85 i'oul, Mr. A. 84 it it LONDON : W. J. JOHNSON, I-BTNTER, 121, FLEET STREET, E.C, )6, 107 i3, 78 !5, 104 . .. iii 60 ^, 90 70 . •• 11 81 i).' 43 85 .. 87 of 47 5; % 113 31 .. 84 •» 76 I, 80 89 , , 115 , , 86 ', 30 8 J 5 > 99 ) 96 6 » 94 vi » 112 105 t 115 35 35, 95 6(5 73 1 3 81 69 113 71 72 87 4 10 24 •T*' ii 91 116 112 78 82 49 93 86 85 84