of the Imperial Government on the advice of those who could command a majority in the elected House of the Legislature.

True to the compromise to which it owes its origin, responsible government has always, throughout its history of threequarters of a century, exhibited the character of a qualified freedom. Unquestionably the history of its operation has always tended in one and the same direction: restrictions which originally were enforced and considered of importance have gradually been allowed to lapse, as public opinion in the colonies became more articulate in favour of freedom from control, or public feeling in the mother country recognized that there had ceased to be sufficient reason for the exercise of that control. In this development both colonial impatience of restraint and Colonial Office reluctance to exercise it co-operated colonial statesmen might consider that Imperial statesmen were unduly tenacious of rights of supervision, but it is doubtful if, with the possible exception of Lord Carnarvon, there was in the nineteenth century any Secretary of State for the Colonies who did not accept and endeavour to follow the principles laid down for himself by Earl Grey, that the interference of the Home Government in the affairs of the colonies should be exercised as rarely as possible, and that when exercised it should, whenever possible, be restricted to the form of advice. Nor was this attitude at all surprising: the great distance of the important colonies, with the exception of Canada, rendered any effort at control singularly difficult and troublesome, and the great majority of holders of the office of Secretary of State were men who, whatever their interests, were not anxious to create troubles for themselves in colonial problems, finding sufficient scope for their energies in those difficulties which presented themselves unasked. Nor in any account of the influences which favoured the development of freedom from restraint should mention be omitted of the influence on Secretaries of State of the permanent officials of the Colonial Office: their education and training, especially before the system of open com

petition was applied to the recruitment of the office, were not such as to encourage qualities of mind which made for interference in what could be left alone, and this attitude of laissez faire, which was in harmony with the spirit of the period when responsible government grew to maturity, was undoubtedly the cause why so much liberty was attained by the colonies with, comparatively speaking, so little friction.

From the beginning of responsible government it was clearly recognized that the relaxation of the bonds of union between the colonies and the United Kingdom must suggest the final solution of the connexion between them and the mother country. On the one hand, it was pointed out, the colonies might well desire to obtain complete freedom and to enjoy the rank of independent nations subject to no external control: the mere bond of loyalty to a common sovereign would not avail when in a few generations the memory of the place of origin had come to an end, and still less in cases where no such common origin had ever existed. On the other hand, experience showed that colonial troubles were the chief causes of foreign difficulties endangering the United Kingdom, which would do well to cast from its neck the millstones of the wretched colonies and let them fight their own battles. To this argument a reply from the side of the colonies was soon adduced in the statement that, so far from the United Kingdom running risk of foreign wars through the possession of colonies, it was the colonies which ran risks of invasion through their connexion with the United Kingdom, which involved them in the danger of war provoked by European combinations in which they had no interest. Thus in the period before confederation in Canada the Imperial Government endeavoured to convince Canada that she was under obligation to make every effort to provide for her own defence, since it was through Canadian interests that any danger of conflict with the United States would arise, while the

1 See the quotations from Sir J. Stephen, H. Merivale, Sir F. Rogers, Disraeli, and others, in J. S. Ewart, Kingdom Papers, i. 32-44.

Canadian Government persisted in the view that, while anxious to do anything possible to aid in the defence of the Empire, Canada could not but expect that the main burden of expenditure would be undertaken by the United Kingdom, since it was merely through her connexion with that kingdom that Canada ran any risk of war. Neither contention, either then or now, can be regarded as being strictly correct. The connexion between Canada and the United Kingdom undoubtedly, even in the case of the United States, involved dangers for Canada: the irritation felt in the United States over the sympathy which it was thought England manifested for the Confederate States in the War of Secession naturally turned the eyes of many Americans to the possibility of accomplishing the policy set before the States in 1812 of uniting Canada with the rest of the northern portion of North America by force of arms if not by the simpler method of purchase. Some thirty years later the militant attitude of the United States over the question of the Venezuela boundary might have provoked a less pacific power than the United Kingdom to enter upon a struggle in which Canada would have been exposed to the greatest danger. If the war with the Boer republics, though technically involving Canada in hostilities, did not and could not in itself bring any risk of injury to Canada, the same cannot be said of the great war of 1914. But on the other hand must be set the fact that for many years Anglo-American relations were rendered difficult and every now and then dangerous owing to the fishery questions affecting Canada and Newfoundland, questions in which the United Kingdom had not the slightest direct interest. From the termination of the reciprocity treaty with the United States in 1866 until the conclusion of the Treaty of Washington in 1871 there was constant risk that the efforts made by the British Government to protect the Canadian fisheries from encroachment by American fishermen would result in war, and the termination of the provisions of that treaty in 1885 marked the beginning of a fresh period of

1 Kingdom Papers, i. 311.

difficulty, which was enhanced by the claim put forward by the United States on the strength of inheritance from Russia to dominion over the Behring Sea. Sir Charles Tupper, then High Commissioner for Canada, records in his account of the efforts made by him to secure action by the British Government that he warned Lord Salisbury in 1890 that, if prompt action were not taken to prevent the United States carrying out its threat to seize ships. flying the British flag when catching seals in the Behring Sea, Canada could only come to the conclusion that the British flag was not strong enough to protect her. The result was that the British Ambassador was instructed to inform the Secretary of State of the United States that if the British flag was interfered with the United States must be prepared for the consequences, and in deference to this warning immediate orders were sent to the United States cruisers not to carry out the instructions to seize British vessels which had been given to them. The Behring Sea question was finally disposed of by the arbitration at Paris in 1893, but the older fishery question revived itself in 1906 when the Newfoundland Government made an unwise effort to secure the ratification by the United States of the commercial convention negotiated in 19022 by Sir Robert Bond with Mr. J. Hay, the United States Secretary of State, by adopting a policy of insisting on the rigid enforcement of the treaty of 1818 regarding the rights of the United States fishermen in the Newfoundland fisheries. Fortunately the good sense of the United States Government and the resolve of the Imperial Government to secure a reasonable settlement prevented matters drifting so far as happened in 1890, but it was not until the arbitration of 19103 that the fishery question received, if not a final settlement, at least so much definition as renders it almost impossible that it should ever again present the possibility of danger of hostilities between the two countries.

Even in the case of Canada, however, the balance of

1 Recollections of Sixty Years, pp. 209, 210.

2 See Parl. Pap., Cd. 3262.

3 Ibid., Cd. 5396 and 6450.

advantage can be shown to have been clearly on the side of the Dominion. The greatness of Canada lies in the fact that the whole of the North American continent north of latitude 49°, with the unimportant exception of Alaska, is united under one supreme Government, and this could never have been effected except through the protection of the United Kingdom, which prevented the American occupation of the west and of British Columbia, secured the addition to the Dominion of the North-West and of Rupert's Land, and thus opened the way to the creation of a new and powerful nation. The same consideration applies in even greater force to Australia and New Zealand, whose long and slow growth to national stature, still far from complete, has been rendered possible only by the power of the United Kingdom, which has preserved for both lands, which their scanty population could not have held for a moment against any invader. It is the habit to lay stress on the failures in policy of statesmen of the past and to emphasize errors made by them, such as the unsatisfactory boundaries of Eastern Canada, the fishery rights of Americans and French in Canada and Newfoundland, and the presence of other foreign nations in the Pacific. It would perhaps be more just if less interesting to lay stress on their great achievements in preserving for the Empire all the lands of first-rate importance all the possessions of foreign powers in the Pacific which might by any process of reasoning be considered as having fallen to these powers through any negligence of British statesmen could not compare in value for a moment with the island of Tasmania. Even in South Africa, in which the disadvantages of British administration have revealed themselves far more fully than in any other part of her dominions, due recognition must be accorded to the statesmanlike policy of conciliation which has after much tribulation produced a Union in which it may be believed in due course conflicting ideals may yet be reconciled, a view encouraged by the overwhelming defeat of the Nationalists in the general election of October 1915.