men from the self-governing Dominions. The people of the United Kingdom already recognize and will recognize in increasing measure the fact that the Dominions are vitally interested in questions of this policy, which has led them to be involved in a war of the first rank. They will be prepared for a time to accept a position in which ministers, while responsible to them alone, can yet plead that their action must be regarded, not merely from the narrower British point of view, and can quote the approval of the Dominions as a part of their justification. In this sense, prior to federation, it may be possible to secure the Dominions a larger share in the control of the defence and foreign policy of the Empire. No such arrangement can be more than a preliminary stage, either on the one hand to federation or on the other to independence and perhaps alliance, nor is it well to be under any misapprehension on so fundamental a point as this. But in politics it is necessary to progress in the way and at the speed which is most practicable. The effect of the war may be to cause the desire of federation to develop in the oversea Dominions: it may produce the view that in the United Kingdom there should be a division between those who conduct domestic affairs, and those who busy themselves with foreign policy. It is perfectly true that foreign policy has been seriously hampered by the fact that the Government has never been able to devote to it the due amount of attention, and that domestic policies have prevented the people from understanding the dangers of the attitude of Germany in anything like a full degree. But it is certain that the divorce of the control of external affairs from the control of internal affairs is a thing which will be but slowly accomplished in any case, be it in the United Kingdom or the Dominions, and it is therefore necessary not lightly because of theoretical considerations to maintain that there is no choice between the nonparticipation of the Dominions in the control of defence and foreign policy and the accomplishment of a federation. This, if it is held to be Mr. Asquith's attitude in 1911, can hardly have been his attitude in later years.

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CHAPTER II

THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE DOMINIONS

THE natural solution for the position of the Dominions, suggested by the result of the Conference of 1911, is that each Dominion should proceed to attain complete independence as a unit of international law, and that the Empire should be reconstituted on the basis that on the one hand should stand the United Kingdom in political control of the Crown Colonies and of India, and on the other hand the self-governing Dominions, each as independent State. Or at least, if the suggestion seems rather absurd when put in this wider aspect, the great self-governing Dominion of Canada should declare its position to be that of an independent State, leaving it for Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa to follow suit either at once or in due course. It is not suggested that this independence need be separation: the Dominion might still under its new status remain a kingdom closely allied with the United Kingdom in sentiment and under the same monarch, but nevertheless as an independent unit in international law, and therefore internationally not responsible for or involved in the blunders of British foreign policy. The proposal has a faint resemblance to that made by certain politicians of Victoria in 1870, but it differs from the lucubration of Sir Gavan Duffy and his friends in its greater clearness of outline and understanding of international politics: it is not suggested that the Dominions should seek to be neutralized, still less that if they were neutralized they would be at liberty to afford aid to the mother country with the greater effectiveness arising from their position as independent States. The Dominions are to stand on their own feet as nations, prepared to accept

the duties as well as to avail themselves of the rights of the status of States of international law.

The case for the independence of the Dominions and primarily of Canada deserves careful consideration, because it has been set out in full detail and with many and varied arguments by a Canadian, Mr. J. S. Ewart, who has for some years conducted to the best of his ability a movement destined, as he hopes, to carry out his scheme in a complete form. He recognizes that as a practical policy, and perhaps also on theoretic grounds, it is not desirable to set out any scheme which would result in the dissolution of any link of union between the United Kingdom and the Dominions and leave the later independent States divorced wholly from the United Kingdom. This view is clearly sound, as a matter of political possibility. The idea that the Dominions might desire and achieve independence, and that the Imperial Government might well be content that it should be freed from them, has disappeared into comparative oblivion with the growth of the Dominions and the obvious interest which they display in their connexion with their native land. Professor Goldwin Smith adhered to the last to his view that the natural destiny of Canada was union with the United States, but he lived to see the Dominion growing more and more self-reliant and less and less inclined to do anything which might hasten her steps in a direction which she did not desire. The Labour Party in the Commonwealth has been accused of lack of interest in the mother country and of republicanism: these accusations made at the general election in 1914 were repudiated by those attacked, and the people of the Commonwealth showed their disbelief in them by returning the suspected party to power, where it spent all its exertions to accomplish its declared desire to afford the Empire all its possible aid. It would be idle to doubt the attachment of the people of New Zealand and of Newfoundland to the mother country: the inhabitants of the Dominion may be willing to believe with the Chief Justice that they have

1 In The Kingdom of Canada and The Kingdom Papers.

before them a glorious future, but they do not share his dislike of the Imperial Government, nor have they taken very seriously his efforts as judge to assert the sovereign powers of the legislature of New Zealand: in Newfoundland the attachment to the United Kingdom is remarkable in its intensity. In the Union of South Africa, alone in all the Dominions, can there be seen any trace of a desire for republican freedom, and the ghastly bad faith which that desire has involved on its authors, and their share in the ' rebellion which they so wrongfully brought about, may be held to have discredited republican leanings in the Union for the time being at least.1

This fact, however, of the clear desire on the part of the Dominions, as shown by their remarkable support of the United Kingdom in a war which they had no chance of preventing, imposes a serious burden on the statesman who wishes to press for the formal transformation of the relations of the United Kingdom and the Dominions, for it compels him to show that it would be compatible with the constitution of the United Kingdom that the Dominions, while becoming units of international law, should remain under the same King as the United Kingdom. The fact is not at all obvious, and the proof requires great care. It rests,2 putting aside the case of the Ionian Islands, which cannot be taken as a serious parallel to even the smallest of the Dominions, on the fact that from 1714 to 1837 the Imperial Crown of the Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was worn by the ruler of Hanover, and that from 1603 to 1707 the union between the two Crowns of Scotland and England was personal. During that period the sovereignties remained quite distinct, the countries had separate flags and coinages, the Parliaments were independent, and imposed various restrictions on the trade between the countries, and finally the two Parliaments enacted laws which but for union

1 The return of 27 Nationalists at the election of October 1915 is a sign that, despite the loyalty of the Union, there is a republican spirit. 2 Ewart, Kingdom Papers, i. 178 seq. Cf. Ward, Great Britain and Hanover.

would have resulted in the separation of the thrones on the death of the reigning Queen. The same procedure was in force when the Crowns of Hanover and Great Britain were united the two Governments were absolutely distinct, the Hanoverian being purely despotic, the English parliamentary; the flags were distinct, and the terms on which the King of Great Britain held his throne expressly denied the obligation of that country to engage in any sort of war in respect of his other possessions, unless with the consent of Parliament. It is sometimes forgotten that, so long as the Hanoverian Crown was united with that of Great Britain, the royal prerogative of declaring war was fettered by this express restriction. Moreover, it is certainly the case that the distinction of the two kingdoms was recognized throughout the period in international law. As Elector of Hanover, George I took part in the war between Prussia, Denmark, and Russia on the one side, and Sweden on the other, and for his assistance in this regard was given the occupation of certain Swedish territory: the British Fleet made some demonstrations in the Baltic, but this was alleged to be due to the need to protect British merchant vessels, and in point of fact the friendly relations of the Swedish and British Crowns were never interrupted. Similarly, the efforts of Peter to obtain subsidies from his ally, George, were met with the reply that as King of England he was not at war with Sweden but would perform his obligations as Elector of Hanover, and the good offices of England were used as a means of bringing about peace between Hanover and Sweden. The same distinction was observed consistently later on the two kingdoms remained distinct, and the actions of the Governments of the two varied from time to time in no small degree. But the possession of Hanover was never regarded with unmixed satisfaction by British statesmen, and its loss by the operation of the Salic law on the accession of Queen Victoria was regarded by public opinion as an unmixed blessing.

It must, however, be noted before accepting the complete parallelism which it is suggested might be drawn between K k

1874