But that their emergence into national life should be by way of independence, perhaps followed by a closer union, is rather an unreasonable theory, and those who have expressed the view, that the development of national status is a necessary preliminary to closer union, did not as a rule mean that the Dominions should first become independent: they meant only that the fullest development of autonomy consistent with the unity of the Empire is a necessary phase of the development of the Dominions. This would be fully admitted by Sir Robert Borden, but he has enunciated the principle that it now lies to extend the nationality of the Dominions, not by excluding them from British nationality, but by giving the Dominion a just share in the control of foreign policy in return for their assumption of a just share in the burden of defence.

In

There can indeed be no doubt that the two things are inseparable. The acute mind of Sir Wilfrid Laurier 2 has always seen that the two go together: if advice is given and acted on by the Imperial Government, the Dominions, he pointed out at the Imperial Conference of 1911, are morally bound to follow up that advice by assistance in war. this Sir Wilfrid sees more clearly than Mr. Ewart, who considers that Canada might properly have pressed the United Kingdom to adopt the suicidal policy of exempting merchant vessels from capture at sea in time of war, without accepting any responsibility for this advice. That position is impossible if advice is meant to be considered seriously, and a great Dominion should not offer platonic remarks on vital issues of the conduct of war.

1 The ideal of M. Bourassa (Que devons-nous à l'Angleterre ? Montreal, 1915).

2 Parl. Pap., Cd. 5745, p. 117; Round Table, 1915, p 431.

CHAPTER III

IMPERIAL PARTNERSHIP

THE chief claim which the solution of the independence of the Dominions as ending the complications of the present relations of the Empire can make is that it would be simple. It would be effected by nothing more than a treaty and an Imperial Act ratifying the treaty. With this there would fall to the ground the marks which formally show the position of a Dominion as a dependency, the selection of the Governor on the advice of Imperial Ministers, the power to withhold assent to Acts of Parliament or to disallow such Acts if assented to by the Governor, the power to pass Imperial legislation applicable to the Dominion, and the subjection of the Dominion Courts to the control of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The new State would have to decide in what manner it would constitute its Executive Government and its Legislature, and much would require to be done tɔ arrange for its recognition by the powers and to set up the régime in full form, but the difficulties would be comparatively small. It is a much more difficult thing to devise some plan by which the Dominions may retain their autonomy, but yet may be associated in Imperial policy and play their part in Imperial defence.

It is important to note that the difficulty as it now presents itself is not one of material means of furthering the growth of the Empire. The Dominions have grown without such means to greatness, and they feel that they must have in some way a national status, a feeling which of course has been greatly strengthened by the facts of the European War. No country which has played its part in that struggle could ever again be expected to content itself with the position of a mere dependency. The change of emphasis is undoubtedly for the better: the old struggle over Imperial Preference

was one in which there could be difficulty due to mere pecuniary considerations, and such differences are less amenable to treatment than differences regarding more intangible things. The stress laid on Imperial Preference may, perhaps, be traced as a matter of history to the strong efforts made by Sir Charles Tupper1 to impress this doctrine upon his contemporaries as the one mode of effecting Imperial unity. The proposal in his mouth was an extremely natural one indeed, for he was anxious to build up the Dominion of Canada at a time when, in 1891, there was no sign of the realization of the great prospects of the Dominion, and it was only right that he should advocate a policy that seemed to him to promise Canada the population which she so urgently needed, and which persisted in flowing to the United States. Moreover, he had assured himself from a study of the effect of a rise in wheat prices on the cost of bread that a rise in the price such as would be caused by the imposition of a tariff on non-colonial wheat imports would not affect the price of bread to the consumer. To his view, therefore, the project of Imperial Preference for Canada, and in modified shape, e. g. in reduced duties on Colonial wool, for other parts of the Empire, seemed feasible and inevitable. This view was expressed by Canada, the Cape, and nearly all the Australasian Colonies at the Ottawa Conference of 1894; but the Imperial Government of the day deliberately rejected it as contrary to the principles of Free Trade and unlikely to benefit the United Kingdom or the Colonies themselves, while leading in all probability to difficulties with foreign powers, though it was explained that there would have been no objection whatever to a proposal of Free Trade within the Empire, which the fiscal exigencies of the Dominions rendered out of the question. Revived effectively in 1902, the project became a living issue in the United Kingdom by the determination of Mr. Chamberlain, after his visit to South Africa in 1903, to present it as the best policy

1 See an article in The Nineteenth Century, October, 1891, and a further explanation in the same journal of April, 1892; reprinted in Recollections of Sixty Years, pp. 256–98.

for the ultimate federation of the Empire. It is perfectly clear from his speech on Imperial Federation, delivered to the Unionists of West Birmingham on May 15, 1903, that the genesis of his support of Preference was the belief that only thus could the growing nations oversea, which by that time had already a quarter of the population of the United Kingdom, be induced to unite in due course in a federal union. He laid stress on the fact that in the South African | War some 50,000 Colonial troops had at one time or other taken part in the conflict, but that the pecuniary burdens of the war had been borne in far too high a measure by the Imperial Government. It was in the extreme desirable that any offer by the Colonies to show their readiness to benefit the Mother Country should be reciprocated: the principle of Preference had been agreed to by Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, and Canada had carried it into effect, for which Germany was now penalizing Canadian imports. It was surely not a true interpretation of the doctrine of Free Trade, which he himself held, believing that the aim should be to increase trade and make its movement more and more free, to lay down that nothing could be done to assist Canada, either directly or indirectly, by inducing Germany to abandon her hostile attitude.

The proposal for a revision of the conception of Free Trade in the interest of Imperial unity was gradually accepted by the Unionist Party, and by other members of that party was developed into a full-grown theory of Protection as being desirable in itself for the benefit of the United Kingdom, a conception which, of course, is not completely to be made consistent with the doctrine of Imperial Preference. The chief attack of the Liberal Party in the period from 1903 to 1905 was directed against the principle of Protection; and the principle of Colonial Preference was assailed in the main either because in theory it was contrary to the rules of Free Trade, or more often because, without a violation of the fiscal system of the country by the imposition of new taxes simply for the purpose of remission in favour of the Dominions, no effective preference could be given. The position of Mr.

Chamberlain in his proposals had been rendered much more difficult by the fact that without his knowledge or concurrence the registration duty on wheat, imposed for revenue purposes during the South African War, with which he had proposed to operate in favour of the Dominions, was repealed by Mr. Ritchie as Chancellor of the Exchequer. The subject of course led itself to indefinite numbers of difficulties and doubts, but the main argument which was effective in the country was undoubtedly the view that, unless the price of food was increased, there would be no return of an increased price to farmers in Canada, and therefore no obvious benefit to the Dominion, while, if the price were to be increased, it would press most heavily on the very poor classes of the population, who were very much worse off in every way than the farmers from whom an increased price was asked. On the other side it was argued that, without any actual increase of price, the imposition of a differential duty on wheat against the foreign imports would result in an increased supply being obtained from the Dominions, which would enable the maintenance of a large population, and it was pointed out that the increase of population in the Dominions was a matter of great Imperial importance. At the same time it was suggested that there could be no expectation of the retention of the Colonial preferences accorded by the Colonies if there was to be no reciprocity. To these arguments it was replied that the mere aggregation of population in a Dominion was not desirable, that quality was important,1 and that Canada, in her indiscriminating readiness to take in any kind of men, was adopting a less wise policy than Australia, even if the latter might go rather far in her exclusiveness, when it was applied to keep out men whose only fault was that they had taken the ordinary precaution to secure an engagement before they proceeded to the Commonwealth, as in the famous case of the Six Hatters, which cast just ridicule on the Commonwealth Government. As regards the withdrawal of the Colonial preferences, it was pointed out 1 Cf. Mitchell, Western Canada before the War, pp. 133 seq., and the reports there cited.