I must conclude, for my space is at an end, by recalling one circumstance which the public may put forward in extenuation of the utterly futile and ineffective course it has almost compelled the Government to pursue. The public has always viewed with suspicion, even with dislike, large expenditure proposed by the Government for warlike purposes, and it has been justified in that suspicion by the small results produced by large sums of money. The accounts given by the Admiralty of the cost of their proceedings were quite unintelligible to the majority of the public, and it is not saying too much to add that they were equally so to the agents of the Government who spent that money. For a moment this spell of darkness was broken through by an able officer of the Admiralty, who, just as he obtained a grasp of the subject and had begun some reforms of vital import in explaining the incidence of expenditure, was removed to Ireland to deal with Irish discontent. Without clear and easily understood accounts, there can be no economy: without economy, it is hard upon us to ask the taxpayer for his money. How the present system works, it is not difficult to imagine; but if certainty should be wanted, I cannot do better than refer to a report of a committee, from which I have already made extracts, as to the mode of purchasing ships, engines, and certain parts of the matériel of the navy. The importance of following up their suggestions will be only too evident.

Do we, then, wish to avoid scares and panics in the future? Select your Minister of Marine for his special knowledge of and abilities for the conduct of the duties confided to him. Make a proper division of the technical heads of Admiralty administration; bring home by name and publicity to all who direct these things individual and personal responsibility; be careful above all things that a system of clear, intelligible, and accurate account of the expenditure of the taxpayers' money shines clearly through the official acts and official proposals; bring the knowledge of what you do know to bear-as all men of business, all men of average intellectual ability, can do—on what you do not know, and you will have gone a long way to have an efficient navy, and to relegate into the obscurity of the past the not ill-founded scares and panics so hateful to the official mind and so unworthy of the national greatness.

ROBERT SPENCER ROBINSON.

The Editor of THE NINETEENTH CENTURY cannot undertake
to return unaccepted MSS.

THE

NINETEENTH

CENTURY.

No. XCVI.-FEBRUARY 1885.

IMPERIAL FEDERATION.

WHAT do you mean by Imperial Federation? What is the real object of this Federation League which you and others are forming?

I have been often asked these questions of late, and my reply is, Such a union of the mother-country with her colonies as will keep the realm one State in relation to other States. Purposely I use the word keep, and not make. I do not say that we are trying by federation to make the empire one commonwealth in relation to foreign Powers, because at the present time it is one commonwealth.

Then why our League? why all this talk and fuss? why not let well alone?

For this reason: because in giving self-government to our colonies we have introduced a principle which must eventually shake off from Great Britain, Greater Britain, and divide it into separate States; which must, in short, dissolve the union, unless counteracting measures be taken to preserve it.

At our last Federation Conference a colonial statesman said, 'We have federation at this moment.' Quite true; Mr. Freeman's definition, which I then ventured to quote, is fulfilled. A Federal Commonwealth, in its perfect form,' he says, 'is one which forms a single State in its relations to other nations, but which consists of many States with regard to its internal government.' ' Without doubt we have this perfect form; but how long can it last? The United Kingdom, the Dominion of Canada, the different Australian 1 Freeman's History of Federal Government, vol. i. p. ?. VOL. XVII.-No. 96.

P

colonies, New Zealand, and the Cape, are, it is true, many States as regards their internal government, and they are also one State as regards other nations. But why? Because the United Kingdom keeps to itself, and absorbs within itself, the foreign policy of the whole realm.

There is, indeed, still some semblance of subordination in respect to domestic legislation; but it is only a semblance, for the veto, reserved to the Crown, would not be used except in some extremely improbable, and practically impossible, case; as, for instance, the enactment of slavery. The colonists can tax themselves or educate themselves as they please; they can levy, as we well know, what Customs' duties they think fit; they can pass what marriage laws they like; they have disestablished their State Churches, and can, if they choose, set them up again; they may pass what Franchise Bills or Seats Bills they prefer; they can protect life, and limb, and liberty, and property by what criminal laws or by what police seem good to them; they have power to borrow money, and even to raise regiments of soldiers, and build and man ships of war; but they have no power to modify or participate in the foreign policy which may at any time bring them into war.

Now the real question is, will they continue to submit to this condition of subordination? As regards internal affairs the colonists have self-government. As regards foreign affairs, they are subjects, not merely of the Queen, but of our Parliament-that is, of the inhabitants of the United Kingdom, or rather of such of those inhabitants as are voters.

These two opposing principles-subordination on the one hand, and self-government on the other-we might almost say subjection and freedom-cannot long co-exist. This imperfect, incomplete, one-sided federation must end either in disintegration or in complete and equal and perfect federation.

It is true that as yet there are not many practical difficulties, though signs and symptoms are appearing. Witness the movement in the Dominion with respect to a Zollverein with the States, though I am glad to believe that this movement has less Canadian support than it had; and the recent Australian protests against German and French annexation. Already, whenever and wherever a selfgoverning colony finds itself damaged or endangered by the action of a foreign Power, it tries to control or modify or initiate the foreign policy of the empire; and we must bear in mind this fact, that the leaven of self-government has not yet had time to fully work. But there is great inconvenience, not to say real danger to peace, in this legal helplessness and powerlessness of the colonies. They try to seize the power of which they are deprived. They attempt, as it were, to right themselves by lynch law; as, for instance, when Queensland hoisted the Imperial flag in New Guinea without

the knowledge or sanction of authorities at home. In like manner, New Zealand threatens to annex the Samoan Islands, regardless alike of Lord Derby and Prince Bismarck.

I am not blaming Queensland for what it has done, or New Zealand for what it may wish to do. To force the hands of our Colonial and Foreign Offices may be the only way of obtaining attention for reasonable claims; but these dangerous modes of assertion would not be tried if they felt that they had an acknowledged voice in the decision of questions deeply affecting their interests.

There is a noteworthy anecdote in the Croker Papers just published. When the two old friends met together for the last time, twelve days before the Duke of Wellington's death, Mr. Croker reminded him how, some thirty years before, they had amused themselves in a drive by guessing what was the other side of the hill, and how when he had expressed his surprise at the Duke's guesses being so generally right, he had said, 'Why, I have spent all my life in trying to guess what was at the other side of the hill.' And the Duke stuck to his story, and turning round to Mrs. Croker, he said: 'All the business of war, and indeed all the business of life, is to endeavour to find out what you don't know by what you do; that's what I call guessing what was the other side of the hill.'

I expect we have here the explanation of the moderate Conservatism in his old age of this incarnation of common sense. The Duke, notwithstanding his Tory prepossessions and prejudices, made a shrewd guess that democracy was the other side of the hill. I wish Ministries would guess more than they do. If the late Government had guessed what was at the other side of the hill of the Dual Control, or the present Government what was at the other side of Tel-el-Kebir, we should have had less trouble in Egypt; but forecast is equally needed, and perhaps even more wanting, in public opinion, which nowadays is, after all, our real government. I want, then, our leaders and guides of public opinion to consider what kind of colonial country they will find at the other side of this hill of colonial self-government.

And if we look at this question not merely from the colonial point of view, we shall see how requisite are forethought, and forecast, and preparation in the interests of the voters and taxpayers of the United Kingdom. We do not tax the colonies, but we do defend them, and I rejoice to believe that we shall continue to defend them.

Mr. Chamberlain had good warrant for his declaration at Birmingham that the English democracy will stand shoulder to shoulder throughout the world to maintain the honour and integrity of the empire.' The democracy which will rule us in the future will be as ready to defend the rights of their fellow-countrymen all the world over as any monarchy or aristocracy in the past; but the people of the United Kingdom-the electors and elected of the House of Commons--will also feel that their colonial fellow-citizens

must bear their share of the burden of self-defence; nor do these fellow-citizens object to fulfil their duty; they are trying to fulfil it, they wish to bear their share. We see this in the militia regiments in Canada, and in the navies actually formed in Australasia, though I suppose few would deny that these movements for colonial selfdefence are partial and incomplete, deficient not so much in expenditure as in system and organisation.

But if we ask the colonies to tax themselves for defence against possible attack from foreign powers, if we remind them that it is not just that we at home should bear more than our fair share of the cost of protecting them from invasion, we must confess that their demand for some participation in imperial foreign policy will gather strength, and therefore again we come to the conclusion that, if the empire is not to be broken up, there must be an organisation for mutual defence and for common control of foreign policy.

This does not imply that such an organisation must be at once and finally defined. Its form will change from time to time according to the increase of the strength of the colonies, whether absolute or relative. The principle of representation has for centuries been the lifeblood of the English Constitution, but it is only now attaining its full development, and in like manner there will be a growth of the principles of federation, though much quicker; for ideas now realise themselves in a year as fully as they used to do in a century.

If, then, I am asked how can the mother-country be kept united with her colonies? I reply, By an organisation for common defence, and a joint foreign policy. And again, to the question, Why not leave matters alone? I reply, Self-government will end in separation if there be no such organisation.

And this brings us to the really important and urgent question, What steps can be taken to initiate or establish this organisation ?¡

But, before discussing this question, there is yet another question which must be admitted to go to the root of the matter, and which is still asked, though not so loudly as in years past. Why take any steps at all? Let the empire be broken up. Be content with training up the colonies to independence. Let them defend themselves, let them have their own Foreign Offices if they wish for such institutions. At any rate, if we must choose between disintegration and such federation as would imply any colonial control of Downing Street, then let disintegration come, and the sooner the better. England was great under Elizabeth, with no Dominion of Canada, no Australasian possessions, no Indian empire; why should not England continue great under Victoria, with Australia and New Zealand and the Cape independent, and Canada annexed to the States, and negro republics in the West Indies and West Africa, and India ruled by Hindoos or Mohammedans? Or, if the future result of separation be not independence; if not only our kinsmen in the