ORGANIZING THE EMPIRE.

Press, Volume XI, Issue 1380, 10 April 1867, Page 2

ORGANIZING THE EMPIRE.

. [From a Correspondent of the " Spoctator,"] 1 For upwards of the last twenty years I have telt convinced that the I only effectual mode of ensuring good government to the colonies was by r giving them representation in the ] Parliament of the Empire ; reeogniz* ' ing them as integral parts of the JBriT tish nation, their natives as entitled to every privilege of British citizens; abolishing all imports levied propria vigore by the mother country on colonial or by a colony on British imports ; replacing these, where necessary, by a maritime excise, or any other form of taxation which should be adopted by a Parliament constituted as aforesaid Sinco these views , first shaped themselves in my mind, a study of the history of the United States has given them abundant con* [ firmation. I believe the main political cause of the greatness of that country has been the organic character of its colonization. With the exception of the original Thirteen States of , the Union, and of the one or two \ which have since been constituted, 00 ' to speak, by spontaneous fission, all the other States which star the national banner are simply so many colonies which, by regular progress, have beea admitted one after another to equal » rights with the parent Thirteen. The ■ most beautiful feature about the pro* 1 cess is that coloniel self-government has always been made a condition precedent of admission to a share '-in > the general government; organization of the " Territory," its representation in Congress by a delegate without a vote, has Weri a necessary preliminary to its recognition as a •' State," invested with, the full privileges of a msrjber of the Federal Union. If England is not utterly to fall from her present position in the world, —if she is not to become as insignificant a speck in the future history of the earth as she is now open upon its map, —nay, if she is nob some day to be overwhelmed and swept clean of her accumulated treasures of wealth, industry, art, and beneficence, by some wave of irresistible invasion, this w what she needs. The experiment-* representative institutions in her colonies' has been, on the whole, a triumphant one. It has shown that most of her children are full grown, cap.ib'o of self-government, and fit to M admitted to her councils. * m;l |^ e _ for a moment that any member of the three great groups of our horta American, our South African, our Australian colonies, not to speak 01 various ones in other groups, were included in the limits of the Unite* States, would not every American statesman feel at onco that such ' i«ritoriea " were fully ripe for adniwsiou as " States " into the Union? ,W° v "i he not seize the first opportunity o* proposing such admission ?. , • ~ So far >om thinking tha Wu, monarchical constitution oi tbeifci"* 1

*" Empire wou ld be any hindrance to the nrcani-ation of a _true_ Federal Union -■-lptween England and her colonies, it Lws to mc that it would immensely ■ Sijtate such union. To be united in oersou is far easier than to be united * a formula. That which has really Sot the American Union together has heen to a Constitution ; and t , for one, whilst fully admitting j that that Constitution needs amendment entertain the greatest fear lest hv the time it has been amended into erfection it should be found to have Fosfc its bol(1 over tlie affecfcions , °f tlie masses, so that, dropping like a loosened keystone from its arch, it would l T [ n et the whole noble fabric of the Union toppling to the ground. But loyalty to a king—still more to a aueen—is a far stron g er bond for th e many; a bond, strange to say, which eems'to {> c ra ther strengthened than wakened by the length over which it JTVtwfebea. Admit M.P.'s from Queensland and New Zealand, from ifatal Demerara, New Brunswick, Canada, to St. Stephen's to-morrow, and they will read lessons of loyalty to Irish Fenians of which the harshness will rather need restraint than encouragement. On the other hand, Ido not hesitate to say thajj the mere attempt to carry out such a plan must ,„ j t g a reconsideration of Ireland's relations towards Eugland, and to the restoration of her local self-govern-ment without prejudice to her duties and rights as.a member of the Imperial Federation. Bat if the history ol the United States affords us the weightiest lesson as to the advantages of such a Federation, their geography teaches us that there is one important point on which • "we' cannot"follow, that example ; and jj ere I am compelled to differ entirely from Mr Howe, aud all out-and-out opponents of colonial, as distinguished from Imperial Federation. The American Constitution prohibits, I think most wisely, private leagues amongst the (several States. _ So would our North American anti-Confederationists as between our colonies. But they forget an enormous difference between the American and the British Empire. The national territory of that is continuous, and aB Mr Lincoln showed • admirably in one of his Messages, there is no satisfactory natural line of demarcation upon which it can be divided." The national territory of the British Empire m aVscontinuous. The various, portions of which it consists are separated from each other by tracts of sea or of foreign territory. And yet, singularly enough, almost all these various portions consist of or fall together in groups, either actually Conterminous, or only divided by short interspaces of sea or land. Thus we have a North American group, all conterminous except Newfoundland, which, again, is closely connected by interest with the opposite coast ; a West Indian group, forming a" network over what may be l&rmedljhe intertropical Atlantic, and •connected by interest with outlying Bermuda; a small West African, a large South African group; a vast Indian one, tending to divide itself into two ; an equally vasst Australasian, within which the New Zealand islands, again, may perhaps some day take rank as a group by. themselves. In all these cases there are a host of actual and possible relations between the members of these groups inter se, which, for purposes of mutual defence, convenience,-improvement, must be in many cases, and in others ought to be, far closer than they could or should be, either with the mother country or with colonies of other groups. Nothing therefore is more natural, nothing more just or ex- ' pedient, than that these groups should organize their mutual relations, so far ag they can be organized without infriht'ing on their duties as members of the L!*°pi re - The proposed North American Confederacy is in principle, "according to view > nothing more than such an organization of mutual relations between the colonies of that "group. It can only do good, if m carrying it out the higher relation of those colonies to the Empire at large .is steadily kept in vie\7 ; will be the fault of English statesmen if the plan be suffered to take such a shape as, instead of strengthening the Empire, shall tend to its ultimate dissolution. The two tendencies, therefore, toward the general " organizing" of tne " Empire," and toward the "organizing" of a particular group of colonies, are, in my opinion, anything but antagonistic ; each should only ' help and strengthen the other. The imperial problem of England is how to develops the largest amount of local life which is consistent with national; ioir to promote the most active colonial self-government which shall not impair the effective organic unity of the Empire. Let us once take to heart the magnitude of this problem, and we shall sco with surprise how ripe for solution it is already, as , respects about "two-thirds of the Empire—all colonies, namely, which are in possession of genuine self-govern-■minti Let us only make a beginning of solving it, and I, for one, shall have no fears for the future of England; I shall believe that the greatness of her glorious Empire is now but in its cradle.