Part 363

_Lord Brassey, Imperial Federation: An English View (Nineteenth Century, September., 1891)._

"The late Mr. Forster launched under the high-sounding title of the 'Imperial Federation League,' a scheme by which its authors proposed to solve all the problems attending the administration of our colonial empire. From first to last the authors of this scheme have never condescended on particulars. 'Imperial federation,' we were always told, was the only specific against the disintegration of the Empire, but as to what this specific really was, no information was vouchsafed. … It is very natural that the citizens of a vast but fragmentary empire, whose territorial atoms (instead of forming, like those of the United States, a 'ring-fence' domain) are scattered over the surface of the globe, should cast about for some artificial links to bind together the colonies we have planted, and 'the thousand tribes nourished on strange religions and lawless slaveries' which we have gathered under our rule. {1114} This anxiety has been naturally augmented by a chronic agitation for the abandonment of all colonies as expensive and useless. For though there may be little to boast of in the fact that Great Britain has in the course of less than three centuries contrived by war, diplomacy, and adventure, to annex about a fifth of the globe, it can hardly be expected that she should relinquish without an effort even the nominal sway she still holds over her colonial empire. Hence it comes to pass that any scheme which seems to supply the needed links is caught up by those who, possessing slight acquaintance with the past history or the present aspirations of our colonists, are simply looking out for some new contrivance by which they may hope that an enduring bond of union may be provided. 'Imperial federation' is the last new 'notion' which has cropped up in pursuance of this object. … Some clue … to its objects and aims may be gained by a reference to the earliest exposition by Mr. Forster of his motives contained in his answer five years ago to the question, 'Why was the League formed at all?' 'For this reason,' says Mr. Forster, 'because in giving self-government to our colonies we have introduced a principle which must eventually shake off from Great Britain, Greater Britain, and divide it into separate states, which must, in short, dissolve the union unless counteracting measures be taken to preserve it.' Believing, as we do, that it has only been by conceding to our larger groups of colonies absolute powers of self-government that we have retained them at all, and that the secret of our protracted empire lies in the fact of this abandonment of central arbitrary power, the retention of which has caused the collapse of all the European empires which preceded us in the path of colonisation, we are bound to enter our emphatic protest against an assumption so utterly erroneous as that propounded by Mr. Forster. So far from believing that the permanent union of the British Empire is to be secured by 'measures which may counteract the workings of colonial self-government,' we are convinced that the only safety for our Empire lies in the unfettered action of that self-government which we have ourselves granted to our colonies. It would almost seem that for Lord Rosebery and his fellow workers the history of the colonial empires of Portugal, Spain, Holland, and France had been written in vain. For if we ask why these colonial empires have dwindled and decayed, the answer is simply because that self-government which is the life of British colonies was never granted to their dependencies. There was a time when one hundred and fifty sovereign princes paid tribute to the treasury of Lisbon. For two hundred years, more than half the South American continent was an appanage of Spain. Ceylon, the Cape, Guiana, and a vast cluster of trade factories in the East were at the close of the seventeenth century colonies of Holland; while half North America, comprising the vast and fertile valleys of the St. Lawrence, the Mississippi, and the Ohio, obeyed, a little more than a century ago, the sceptre of France. Neither Portugal, nor Spain, nor Holland, nor France, has lacked able rulers or statesmen, but the colonial empire of all these states has crumbled and decayed. The exceptional position of Great Britain in this respect can only be ascribed to the relinquishment of all the advantages, political and commercial, ordinarily presumed to result to dominant states from the possession of dependencies. … The romantic dreams of the Imperial Federation League were in fact dissipated beforehand by the irrevocable grant of independent legislatures to all our most important colonies, and Lord Rosebery may rest assured that, charm he never so wisely, they will not listen to his blandishments at the cost of one iota of the political privileges already conferred on them."

_Imperial Federation (Edinburgh Review, July, 1889)._

"'Britannic Confederation' is defined to be an union of 'the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, British North America, 'British South Africa, and Australasia.' The West Indies and one or two other British Dependencies seem here to be shut out; but, at any rate, with this definition we at least know where we are. The terms of the union we are not told; but, as the word 'confederation' is used, I conceive that they are meant to be strictly federal. That is to say, first of all, the Parliament of the United Kingdom will give up its right to legislate for British North America, British South Africa, and Australasia. Then the United Kingdom, British North America, British South Africa and Australasia will enter into a federal relation with one another. They may enter either as single members (States or Cantons) 'or as groups of members. That is, Great Britain and Ireland might enter as a single State of the Confederation, or England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales—or possibly smaller divisions again—might enter as separate States. Or Great Britain, Australia, Canada, &c., might enter as themselves Leagues, members of a greater League, as in the old state of things in Graubünden. I am not arguing for or against any of these arrangements. I am only stating them as possible. But whatever the units are to be—Great Britain and Australia, England and Victoria, or anything larger or smaller—if the confederation is to be a real one, each State must keep some powers to itself, and must yield some powers to a central body. That Central body, in which all the States must be represented in some way or other, will naturally deal with all international matters, all matters that concern the Britannic Confederation as a whole. The legislatures of Great Britain and Australia, England and Victoria, or whatever the units fixed on may be, will deal only with the internal affairs of those several cantons. Now such a scheme as this is theoretically possible. That is, it involves no contradiction in terms, as the talk about Imperial Federation does. It is purely federal; there is nothing 'imperial' about it. It is simply applying to certain political communities a process which has been actually gone through by certain other political communities. It is proposing to reconstruct a certain political constitution after the model of certain other political constitutions which are in actual working. It is therefore something better than mere talk and theory. But, because it is theoretically possible, it does not follow that it is practically possible, that is, that it is possible in this particular case. … Of the federations existing at this time the two chief are Switzerland and the United States of America. They differ in this point, that one is very large and the other very small; they agree in this, that the territory of both is continuous. But the proposed Britannic Confederation will be scattered, scattered over every part of the world. {1115} I know of no example in any age of a scattered confederation, a scattered Bundesstaat. The Hanse Towns were not a Bundesstaat; they were hardly a Staatenbund. Of the probable working of such a body as that which is now proposed the experience of history can teach us nothing; we can only guess what may be likely. The Britannic Confederation will have its federal congress sitting somewhere, perhaps at Westminster, perhaps at Melbourne, perhaps at some Washington called specially into being at some point more central than either. … For a while their representatives will think it grand to sit at Westminster; presently, as the spirit of equality grows, they are not unlikely to ask for some more central place; they may even refuse to stir out of their own territory. That is to say, they will find that the sentiment of national unity, which they undoubtedly have in no small measure, needs some physical and some political basis to stand on. It is hard to believe that States which are united only by a sentiment, which have so much, both political and physical, to keep them asunder, will be kept together for ever by a sentiment only. And we must further remember that that sentiment is a sentiment for the mother-country, and not for one another. … Canada and Australia care a great deal for Great Britain; we may doubt whether, apart from Great Britain, Canada and Australia care very much for one another. There may be American States which care yet less for one another; but in their case mere continuity produces a crowd of interests and relations common to all. We may doubt whether the confederation of States so distant as the existing colonies of Great Britain, whether the bringing them into closer relations with one another as well as with Great Britain, will at all tend to the advance of a common national unity among them. We may doubt whether it will not be likely to bring out some hidden tendencies to disunion among them. … In the scattered confederation all questions and parties are likely to be local. It is hard to see what will be the materials for the formation of great national parties among such scattered elements."

_E. A. Freeman, The Physical and Political Bases of National Unity (Britannic Confederation, edited by A. S. White)._

"I have the greatest respect for the aspirations of the Imperial Federationists, and myself most earnestly desire the moral unity of our race and its partnership in achievement and grandeur. But an attempt at formal Federation, such as is now proposed, would in the first place exclude the people of the United States, who form the largest portion of the English-speaking race, and in the second place it would split us all to pieces. It would, I am persuaded, call into play centrifugal forces against which the centripetal forces could not contend for an hour. What interests of the class with which a Federal Parliament would deal have Australia and Canada in common? What enemy has either of them whom the other would be inclined to fight? Australia, it seems, looks forward to a struggle with the Chinese for ascendency in that quarter of the globe. Canada cares no more about a struggle between the Australians and the Chinese at the other extremity of the globe than the Australians would care about a dispute between Canada and her neighbours in the United States respecting Canadian boundaries or the Fisheries Question. The circumstances of the two groups of colonies, to which their policy must conform, are totally different. Australia lies in an ocean by herself: Canada is territorially interlocked and commercially bound up, as well as socially almost fused, with the great mass of English-speaking population which occupies the larger portion of her continent. Australia again is entirely British. Canada has in her midst a great block of French population, constituting a distinct nationality, which instead of being absorbed is daily growing in intensity; and she would practically be unable to take part in any enterprise or support any policy, especially any policy entailing an increase of taxation, to which the French Canadians were opposed. Of getting Canada to contribute out of her own resources to wars or to the maintenance of armaments, for the objects of British diplomacy in Europe or in the East, no one who knows the Canadians can imagine that there would be the slightest hope. The very suggestion, at the time of the Soudan Expedition, called forth emphatic protests on all sides. The only results of an experiment in formal Federation, I repeat, would be repudiation of Federal demands, estrangement and dissolution."

_Goldwin Smith, Straining the Silken Thread (Macmillan's Magazine. August, 1888)._

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: European Federation.

"While it is obvious that Imperial Federation of the British Empire would cover many of the defects in our relationship with the colonies, it is equally apparent that it is open to the fatal objection of merely making us a more formidable factor in the field of international anarchy. Suppose the colonies undertook to share equitably the great cost of imperial defence in the present state of things throughout Europe—and that is a very large assumption—England would be entirely dependent, in case of war, for the supply of food on the fleet, any accident to which would place us at the enemy's mercy. Even without actual hostilities, however, our additional strength would cause another increase of foreign armaments to meet the case of war with us. This process has taken place invariably on the increase of armaments of any European state, and may be taken to be as certain as that the sun will rise to-morrow. But all the benefits accruing from Imperial Federation may be secured by European Federation, plus a reduction of military liability, which Imperial Federation would not only not reduce, but increase. There is nothing to prevent the self-governing colonies from joining in a European Federation, and thus enlarging the basis of that institution enormously, and cutting off in a corresponding degree the chance of an outbreak of violence in another direction, which could not fail to have serious consequences to the colonies at any rate."

_C. D. Farquharson, Federation, the Polity of the Future (Westminster Review, December, 1891), pages 602-603._

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: End----------

FEDERALIST, The.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1787-1789.

FEDERALISTS; The party of the.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1789-1792; also 1812; and 1814 (DECEMBER): THE HARTFORD CONVENTION.

FEDS. CONFEDS.

See BOYS IN BLUE.

FEE.

See FEUDALISM.

FEHDERECHT.

The right of private warfare, or diffidation, exercised in mediæval Germany.

See LANDDFRIEDE.

{1116}

FEHRBELLIN, Battle of (1675).

See BRANDENBURG: A. D. 1640-1688; and SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1644-1697.

FEIS OF TARA.

See TARA.

FELICIAN HERESY.

See ADOPTIANISM.

FELIX V., Pope, A. D. 1439-1449 Elected by the Council of Basle.

FENIAN MOVEMENT, The.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1858-1867; and CANADA: A. D. 1866-1871.

FENIAN: Origin of the Name.

An Irish poem of the ninth century called the Duan Eireannach, or Poem of Ireland, preserves a mythical story of the origin of the Irish people, according to which they sprang from one Fenius Farsaidh who came out of Scythia. Nel, or Niul, the son of Fenius, travelled into Egypt and married Scota, a daughter of Forann (Pharaoh). "Niul had a son named Gaedhuil Glas, or Green Gael; and we are told that it is from him the Irish are called Gaedhil (Gael) or Gadelians, while from his mother is derived the name of Scoti, or Scots, and from Fenius that of Feni or Fenians."

_M. Haverty, History of Ireland, page 10._

From this legend was derived the name of the Fenian Brotherhood, organized in Ireland and America for the liberation of the former from British rule, and which played a disturbing but unsuccessful part in Irish affairs from about 1865 to 1871.

FEODORE.

See THEODORE.

FEODUM.

See FEUDALISM.

FEOF.

See FEUDALISM.

FEORM FULTUM.

See FERM.

FERDINAND, King of Portugal, A. D. 1367-1383.

Ferdinand 1., Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary and Bohemia, 1835-1848.

Ferdinand I., Germanic Emperor, 1558-1564; Archduke of Austria, and King of Hungary and Bohemia, 1526-1564; King of the Romans, 1531-1558.

Ferdinand I., King of Aragon and Sicily, 1412-1416.

Ferdinand I., King of Castile, 1035-1065; King of Leon, 1037-1065.

Ferdinand I., King of Naples, 1458-1494.

Ferdinand II., Germanic Emperor and King of Bohemia and Hungary, 1619-1637.

Ferdinand II., King of Aragon, 1479-1516; V. of Castile (King-Consort of Isabella of Castile and Regent), 1474-1516; II. of Sicily, 1479-1516; and III. of Naples, 1503-1516.

Ferdinand II., King of Leon, 1157-1188.

Ferdinand II., King of Naples, 1495-1496.

Ferdinand II., called Bomba, King of the Two Sicilies, 1830-1859.

Ferdinand III., Germanic Emperor, and King of Hungary and Bohemia, 1637-1657.

Ferdinand III., King of Castile, 1217-1230; King of Leon and Castile, united, 1230-1252.

Ferdinand IV., King of Leon and Castile, 1295-1312.

Ferdinand IV., King of Naples, and I. of the Two Sicilies, 1759-1806; and 1815-1825.

Ferdinand VI., King of Spain, 1746-1759.

Ferdinand VII., King of Spain, 1808; and 1814-1833.

FERIÆ.

See LUDI.

FERM. FIRMA. FARM.

"A sort of composition for all the profits arising to the king [in England, Norman period] from his ancient claims on the land and from the judicial proceedings of the shire-moot; the rent of detached pieces of demesne land, the remnants of the ancient folk-land; the payments due from corporate bodies and individuals for the primitive gifts, the offerings made in kind, or the hospitality—the feorm-fultum—which the kings had a right to exact from their subjects, and which were before the time of Domesday generally commuted for money; the fines, or a portion of the fines, paid in the ordinary process of the county courts, and other small miscellaneous incidents. These had been, soon after the composition of Domesday, estimated at a fixed sum, which was regarded as a sort of rent or composition at which the county was let to the sheriff and recorded in the 'Rotulus Exactorious'; for this, under the name of ferm, he answered annually; if his receipts were in excess, he retained the balance as his lawful profit, the wages of his service; if the proceeds fell below the ferm, he had to pay the difference from his own purse. … The farm, ferm, or firma, the rent or composition for the ancient feorm-fultum, or provision payable in kind to the Anglo-Saxon kings. The history of the word in its French form would be interesting. The use of the word for a pecuniary payment is traced long before the Norman Conquest."

_W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, chapter 11, section 126, and note._

FERNANDO.

See FERDINAND.

FEROZESHUR, Battle of (1845)

See INDIA: A. D. 1845-1849.

FERRARA: The House of Este.

See ESTE.

FERRARA: A. D. 1275. Sovereignty of the Pope confirmed by Rodolph of Hapsburg.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1273-1308.

FERRARA: A. D. 1597. Annexation to the states of the Church. End of the house of Este. Decay of the city and duchy.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1597.

FERRARA: A. D. 1797. Joined to the Cispadine Republic.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1796-1797 (OCTOBER-APRIL).

FERRARA: End----------

FERRY BRIDGE, Battle of (1461).

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1455-1471.

FETIALES. FECIALES.

"The duties of the feciales, or fetiales [among the Romans]. extended over every branch of international law. They gave advice on all matters of peace or war, and the conclusion of treaties and alliances. … They fulfilled the same functions as heralds, and, as such, were frequently entrusted with important communications. They were also sent on regular embassies. To them was entrusted the reception and entertainment of foreign envoys. They were required to decide on the justice of a war about to commence, and to proclaim and consecrate it according to certain established formalities. … The College of Feciales consisted of nearly twenty members, with a president, who was called Pater Patratus, because it was necessary that he should have both father and children living, that he might be supposed to take greater interest in the welfare of the State, and look backwards as well as forwards. … The name of Feciales … still existed under the emperors, as well as that of Pater Patratus, though only as a title of honour, while the institution itself was for ever annihilated; and, after the reign of Tiberius, we cannot find any trace of it."

_E. C. G. Murray, Embassies and Foreign Courts, pages 8-10._

See, also, AUGURS.

{1117}

FEUDAL TENURES.