ENGLAND AND THE COLONIES.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1396, 6 August 1878, Page 3

ENGLAND AND THE COLONIES.

[From the London “Daily Telegraph,” June 6.] In an article on England and the colonies in the recent number of the “Princeton Review,” Mr Froudo draws a distinction between English politicians and the English people in their treatment of the colonies. The people built up the New World, while the politicians concentrated their thoughts and energies upon the Old World. An exception is mane in the case of Lord Chatham, who “ rescued America from French interference.” To Lord Beaconsfield grand ideas a,re generally attributed, but they are not directed to a Colonial Empire. As for Lord Palmerston, Mr Froude gives a characteristic anecdote. Lird Palmerston, it appears, was once at a loss for a Colonial Secretary. Sir Arthur Helps told Mr Fmude that Lord Palmerston consulted him, “and, not being able to hit on any one exactly to his mind, said, * I think I will take the office myself. Gome upstairs with me, and we will look at the maps and see where these places arc !’ ” The English official mind is governed by traditions, and traditions tend eastward. Mr Freude would turn the official mind upside down. Hewruld have Ministers remember that Europe is not the only Continent, and that their first duty is to our own people at home and in our colonies.

Mr Froudo proceeds to state “ the obstacles to a continued union.” In the first place, the original colonists have carried away feelings more or less resentful against the mother country. Religious persecution, political persecution, want of work, want of land, has, or they fancy it his, carried them off. They have found the old country a stepmother and not a mother. Next, the parent Stale never regards her colonial children as the equals of those at. home. She treats them as if they existed for her advantage, and not for their own. She quarters on them her own inefficient public servants. A noble duke wants a place for a younger brother. He commands a vote or two in the House of Commons, and may not be refused ; so the younger brother must be made a colonial governor. Mr Froudo has heard of a governor being appointed “ because ho was the greatest bore in Parliament, and both sides were eager to he rid of him.” More important by far is the responsibility of the colonics in regard to the foreign policy of the mother country. We have lately approached a state of war in which these great self-governing colonies would have been directly affected. They aro liable for the consequences of a public policy in which they have no voice. Their towns may be bombarded, their shores invaded, their commerce paralysed in a quarrel for which they care nothing, and in which they have not a single interest at stake. Naturally enough, the colonies think this arrangement a hard one for them. They make their own laws, but the Crown has a veto; they cannot alter their Constitution without the help of the Imperial Parliament. They cannot extend their boundaries without permission, and English opinion insists on making itself felt in their dealings with the coloured rates. One consequence is that the colonies aro defenceless. Melbourne and Sydney aro unprotected, Simon’s Bay, at the Cape of Good Hope, is perhaps one of the most important naval positions in the whole globe. But at Simon’s Bay Mr Froudo noticed there was one battery of five old rusty six-pounders, which it was scarcely safe to fire, even for salutes. At Capetown itself the fortifications are so obsolete that the Commander-in-Cbief told Mr Froude that if an enemy’s squadron came into the bay it would be his duty to withdraw. Both Simon’s Bay and Capetown are under the colonial authorities The British taxpayer will not send Armstrong guns to secure these positions. The colonists they say, will not contribute a sixpence, because nothing but their connection with Greatßritain can expose them to attack. To the colonies our policy is infinitely trying and irritating. They have approved and admired the conduct of Lord Carnarvon as 0 louial Minister, and then, in the midst of his success, Lord Carnarvon’s career is broken off because he disagreed with the Prime Minister as to the internal arrangements of Europe. The people at Homo have no views of their own, and leave their rulers to do as they please, A Colonial Minister is left to follow his own funcies. In a few years lie goes out of office. His successor reverses all that he has done, and the colonists are kept in a perpetual fever. A very formidable obstacle to continued union is, Mr Froude thinks, the encouragement to absenteeism on the part of “all their superior people,” which the existing connection affords. So long us (lie colonics are attached on ti c present lines to Great Britain, it seems to Mr Froude certain that colonists of great intellectual powers, or who have made fortunes and wisli for cultivated society, will be under an irresistible temptation to transfer themselves from the circumference of the Empire

to its contra. Will a painter linger in Sydney when he may bo winning glory at the Royal Academy ? Will a brilliant lawyer bo c >ntont to shine at Ottawa when ho thinks he sees his way to the woolsack ! Will a colonial millionaire stay where his antecedents are perhaps remembered, when in England great wealth commands, not luxuries only, but social station—a seat in Parliament, and the adulation of mankind ? Will he forego the attractions of Grosvenor square and an English park ? “If the colonies are really the germs of nations that are to be, this ansenteeism is the most vital of all questions to them.”

Such, then, are the alleged difficulties in the way of maintaining a union between Great Britain and the self governing colonies. “In some form or other, ’ Mr Eroude declares, “they must bo drawn closer to us or the connection will come to an end.” It is to Mr Eroude’s proposal* that we muet now turn. These are both curious and novel, and we should not fail to remember that they have been in the first place submitted to the American people. Mr Eroude does not suggest any legislative arrangement. “No such arrangement is at present possible.” It is the interest of Great Britain to make herself greater by attaching these colonies to herself. These are not the days of small States. Every day we see small States combining into large. The Great Powers grow gro iter ; the lesser Powers confederate for protection. We cannot by taking thought ever so earnestly add an acre to our area. The expanding powers of our race are not diminished. But we require room in which to grow, and we have territory in the colonies as large again as Europe if wo choose to use it.. Americans count that by the end of the century they will be a nation of eighty millions. Why are wo to lag behind the Americans ? What shall we do with the swarms of children that are running about our streets ? Are these to be lost to the English commonwealth P What shall we do for markets ? American calicoes have been seen in Manchester. If we look to the colonies wo find that trade follows the flag. In another fifty years there will bo probably four times as many people in the colonies as there are to-day. Let them remain under our flag, and to us they will come to buy and sell. To Mr Eroude, in concluding this argument, “ it seems that on whether they remain with us or not, the whole alternative depends whether wc are to continue the greatest people in the world, or to decline into a second Holland.”

What, then, does Mr Froudo propose ? We reach his first indication of a policy in in the words, “No colonists are admitted to ancu-nt orders of honour.” He scorns for them the “ special” Order of St. Michael and St. George. “ A colonist, of course, might not aspire to the sublime Garter ; but. not one of them has even the ‘Bath.’” Mr Froud has also a suggestion to make with respect to the political connection of England and the colonies. “ We cannot,” hosnys, “now admit their representatives to the House of Commons, but there is a second House to which the objection does not apply. Why should we not have colonial peers?” Whether the Lords spiritual and temporal would object to receive a Duke of Ottawa, a Marquis of Toronto, or an Esrl of Bendigo, with others of colonial title, Mr Froude does not discuss. But he does think “there might be a proper reluctance in these young communities to.introduce among themselves the hereditary dignities of the Old World.” And to meet this “proper reluctance” he suggests that eminent men of the colonies — “ men of large fortune, distinguished polititicians, the equals socially and intellectually of many of those whom we select at home for political canoniz'd ion,” might be life peers. After the “ Bath ” and the peerage, Mr Froude takes up the Privy Council and “the mere title of Right Honourable.” “ People like these feathers in their caps, and so do their friends for them.” Fourthly, “ there are the various departments of the Civil service. Let examinations be held in Melbourne and Sydney, Ottawa, and Capetown.” “The colonists would at once have an immediate interest in the active life of the Empire.” Fifthly, Mr Froude lays hold of the “English professions.” We have Irish lawyers and doctors, Scotch lawyers and doctors, even American lawyers, in distinguished practice among us ; we would gladly see Australia! ■ and Canadians added to the list. The new Medical Bill specially provides for the admission of colonial doctors. Sixthly, the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge are to invite colonial students and found colonial scholarships, and thus “insensible links will form more strong a thousandfold than the most ingenious political contrivances.” Seventhly, use is to be made of the army and navy. “Might not a few commissions be granted to the colonies with advantage ? A few nominations to our training ships ? Nay, we have Highland regiments, we have Irish regiments. Why not have Australian regiments and Canadian regiments ?” It is not a little strange that Mr Froude shouM fail to see how surely these proposals would augment that “obstacle” which he describes as “ tiie most vital of all questions ”to the colonies. Not the millionaires only, but all the “superior people,” all the artists, and all the brilliant lawyers, as well as the flower of every sort and kind, are to be drawn hither by red ribands, by lifepeerages, as well as by the Civil Service, the universities, and the professions. Mr Fronde’s remedies are in flat contradiction to bis argument. Our management of the colonies is not very defective if these things are all that can be suggested by way of remedy and improvement.