CHAPTER VIII.

AUSTRALIA.

I HAVE been able to speak of Canada as a unit; as already ripe for the next stage in its political development; and of its people as practically familiar with the application of the Federal principle. The Australian colonies, which, taken together, come next to Canada in size and population, have not reached this point, but are struggling towards it. Yielding to what appears to be the general tendency of modern political development, and following the example of the United States and Canada, the Australian people are wrestling with the problems of local federation. With two great precedents to guide them the task might seem an easy one. But they meet with the old difficulty in learning the art of give and take; in overcoming the same narrow but often sincere spirit of provincialism which obstructed the adoption of a federal system in the United States and Canada, the spirit which will have to be met and overcome in working out any system of British unity. It is, however, a significant and hopeful fact that the growth of the individual colonies has inspired in all the best minds the aspiration for some larger {193} Australian patriotism than any single colony can give. The problem of federating Australia presents some features different from those met with in the United States and Canada. The whole territory of a vast continent is divided among five colonies, each of which has therefore in area the proportions of an empire or kingdom, and far exceeds in size the states of the American Union or the provinces of Canada. Each has a sea frontage of its own, and is thus independent of all others for external communication. These divisions, again, have grown up under a system of what may be called state socialism. The government of each colony takes the chief part in developing its resources, by the construction of Railways, irrigation systems and other public works, involving the creation of large public debts. Thus immense importance has been given to the functions of the individual colony, functions which the colony would be unwilling to resign, and which the Federal Government would be rash to undertake.

I mention these new features and difficulties, because in dealing with them new light will be thrown on federal problems. Each accomplished federation makes more clear the steps by which the next and higher one is to be attained, and the principles by which it is to be governed.

It will be necessary to speak of the three insular divisions of the Australasian colonies separately, but it is in regarding them as a whole that we get an adequate idea of the great place which they hold {194} and may continue to hold in the Empire. Their populations are, and will continue to be, more purely British than any countries yet occupied by Anglo-Saxon people. Ninety-five per cent. of the inhabitants, whether born in the colonies or in the mother-land, are British. There is here nothing to parallel the elimination of the Anglo-Saxon element which is taking place so rapidly in the United States. There is no French province, with its individual lines of development, as in Canada. There is no large Dutch element, as in South Africa. The coloured population which may be found necessary for the cultivation of the tropical north, will be strictly subordinated to the necessities of British development, and there will never be in Australia, as there is in the United States, an immense coloured vote to confuse national politics. As a base of maritime power the Australasian colonies manifestly furnish to the nation of which they are a part an opportunity for maintaining a supreme and indisputable control over a vast area of the southern seas. Their harbours, some of which are amongst the most capacious in the world are yet for the most part capable of secure defence. Several are already supplied with docks, spacious enough to admit for repair the largest ships afloat. The more important are already strongly fortified. Melbourne is pronounced by competent authorities to be one of the best defended ports in the Empire. In New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania and New Zealand, great neighbouring coal {195} deposits increase the value of the harbours as stations for either carrying on or protecting trade. Still more important, they have behind them great and increasing populations, capable of supplying adequate means of local defence. It is manifest that such colonies may be a great element of strength in any nation, and especially in one which chiefly depends for security on naval power. Along with South Africa in the Southern Hemisphere they complete what I have before called the quadrilateral of maritime position which in the Northern Hemisphere is represented by the United Kingdom itself and Canada, with the commanding outlook of the latter upon the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Australasia and South Africa, however, projected as they are far into the water hemisphere of the globe, give a far more complete monoply of naval position than do the northern angles of this quadrilateral. A great sea power enjoying the right to their exclusive use would in any conflict have an immeasurable advantage in maintaining command of the ocean.

The facts which indicate the industrial relation of Australasia to the rest of the Empire are scarcely less significant than those connected with naval position.

In the production of one great article of manufacture, wool, it easily leads the world, both in respect of quantity and quality. In its singular adaptation for pastoral pursuits it seems the natural complement of a great manufacturing country like the United Kingdom, and of a cold country like Canada. Its {196} capacity for supplying meat as well as wool to the United Kingdom has increased greatly during the last few years and appears capable of indefinite expansion.

The production of gold, amounting to more than £300,000,000 in less than fifty years; of silver, copper, tin and other metals, which in vast quantities find their chief market in Great Britain, indicate another important line of connection with British industry. In proportion to population the Australasian colonies take from Great Britain more than any other countries in the world; they are able to do so because they sell to her more than any other countries. Without precise figures to justify the assertion one is yet quite safe in saying that no two states in the American Union, even those lying most closely together, have such proportionately large trade relations with each other as have the Australasian colonies and the United Kingdom, situated at opposite sides of the globe.

Australia's apparent isolation has suggested to many the possibility and expediency of her aiming at an independent national life. A little study of her relations with the rest of the world shows that her isolation, at any rate, is purely imaginary. If the first glance leads us to think that the colonies most remote from Britain are likely to have the least connection with her, facts soon show us that they really have the closest of all. There is a very plain argument which goes to prove that distance under {197} the conditions of modern commerce, produces a greater community of interest than contiguity. In Canada I have put historical bias in the forefront of the factors determining towards national unity, a bias so strong that in the future, as in the past, it seems likely to defy any geographical considerations which oppose it, and to force even commercial relations, to some extent, if need be, into its own direction. In Australia the prior place must be given to geographical situation and its influence upon commercial relationship. In her interests and connections Australia is, in an extraordinary degree, European and Asiatic. Four-fifths at least of all her external commerce is with Britain or with European countries chiefly through Britain. This trade passes along waterways the safety of which depends upon the movements of European powers. It is an essential element in the prosperity of the people. A trade at present small but prospectively great in the Indian and China seas gives Australia a deep interest in Asiatic questions.

An able Australian writer lately said in the _Times_, 'Australia is one of the least self-contained countries in the world. It is a wonderful producer of raw material. But it must trade off this raw material. ... A dozen big "stations" would supply wool enough to clothe every man, woman and child in Australia. How is the big remainder, almost the whole, to be disposed of? We must sell it in the other hemisphere. We have no choice. ... The fact is we cannot {198} produce all we want to consume, and we cannot consume all that we can easily produce. ... We must sell our surplus abroad. It would not be worth while disturbing the deposit at Broken Hill only to pack away millions of silver coins in vaults.' He goes on to say: 'England could do without Australia better than Australia could do without England. The one imaginable event would mean something like ruin; the other, only disaster. England's prosperity is rooted in many countries, in so many that she is always able to turn a brave face in any single direction.'

Leading merchants and financiers of Australia have said to me that six months stoppage of the English trade would mean the closing up of three-fourths of the commercial and financial houses of the country. The rapid expansion of this trade every day increases the importance of the Suez Canal and the Cape of Good Hope routes, the two channels along which Australian commerce chiefly flows. Another field for trade is opening up in the China seas and in India. For a people thus related to Europe, Africa, and Asia, the Eastern Question, with all that it involves, has a deep and permanent interest. The question of whether Great Britain or Russia is in India and holds command of Indian waters is vital to Australia's position in the Southern seas.

On this point the _Melbourne Age_ not long since said: 'The growth of Australia into a nation will bring with it the burdens of a nation, among which {199} the burden of foreign relations is the worst, especially if the relationship concerns a hostile power. Australia is already concerned in the Russian advance on India. ...The possession of the Indian seaboard means so much to the safety of these colonies that the mere mention of it is sufficient to awaken attention on the subject: for if the peace of Australia demands that foreign nations shall not post themselves in the Pacific, still more vital is it that Russian guns shall not point over the Indian ocean, or Russian cruisers gather in Indian harbours. Australia shares in the danger, and is interested in meeting it, whether from the Imperial or the local point of view. Even as an independent state, Australia could not afford to agree to an occupation of India by Russia; in fact, our danger would be all the greater. If the Russians reach the sea-front the menace to Australia will be intolerable, and Australia has its own interest in preventing this. The defence of Australia begins on the hills outside Herat, and there already the attack has begun.' I have preferred to quote an Australian opinion upon this point to giving my own.

But even the questions connected with the trade routes and India do not exhaust the European interests of Australia. She has Germany and France at her doors, the one in New Guinea and the other at New Caledonia and the New Hebrides. With both she has had irritating points of difference and to the presence of both in the Pacific she objects. {200} The nearness of the great Dutch colonies of Java and the neighbouring islands is not now a subject of anxiety, but should the course of European politics ever lead to the absorption of Holland by Germany, an apparently not impossible contingency, the Dutch colonies would become more serious factors in Australasian affairs, for a great European naval and military power would control a native population which numbers 20,000,000, inhabiting islands which stretch along and lie close to the uninhabited side of Australia. The present able administrator of New Guinea, Sir William McGregor, who has long made a special study of the political relations of the Pacific, expressed to me his opinion that Australasian independence, with the consequent withdrawal of Britain's protection, would almost certainly result in French and German efforts to secure positions in Australasia at the expense of the colonies.

The defence of her sea-borne commerce, greater in proportion to population, as has been said, than that of any other country in the world, must always be a foremost thought in the Australian mind. On the conditions which will render that defence secure military authorities are practically agreed. Speaking of the great naval stations which command the principal trade routes, Major General Sir Bevan Edwardes said after his late careful study of Australian defence: 'It will thus be seen how mutually dependent the scattered parts of the Empire must necessarily be. The mother-country in maintaining {201} these fortified stations affords direct protection to Australian interests. The Cape Colony, in bearing a share in the defence of the most important of these stations, lends a hand to Australia in the event of war. Hong Kong, Singapore, Ceylon and Mauritius, in the large contributions they have made to defence, and the considerable annual sums applied to military purposes, are not only defending themselves, but the interests of the whole nation, including those of Australia. Canada, by the construction of that grand line of communication, the Canada Pacific Railway--the importance of which will be fully shown in our next great war--and when she has completed the defences of Esquimault, will in the same way aid in the general national defence.' He adds, and I venture to italicize his words: '_Australia, as being the most remote of all portions of the Empire, and having the largest trade routes, would gain more in war from the existence of these stations than any other group of colonies. The idea that local defence will suffice for the needs of a commercial country, and that the interests of Australasia end with her territorial waters, is utterly false. The real defence of the Australasian colonies and their trade will be secured by fleets thousands of miles from their shores_[1].'

Once more, China, with its population of 400,000,000, is a close neighbour to Australia with its 4,000,000. Only narrow seas separate them. The decisive objection felt in every part of Australia to the immigration {202} of Chinese, and the steps taken to prevent it, point to relations which might easily lead to serious rupture between the two countries. I have heard sober-minded Australians, including cabinet ministers, affirm that for a long time to come Australia of itself would be absolutely powerless to offer any adequate resistance to an irritated China if she used her considerable fleet for the annoyance of Australian commerce, or if she chose to flood with a Mongolian population the vast unoccupied areas of the North and West coasts of the continent, which are incapable of defence by land forces from the colonies. The idea is sometimes brought forward in Australia that England's desire to keep on good terms with China and Australia's resolution to prevent a large Chinese immigration, bring Imperial and colonial interests into hopeless conflict on a fundamental point of policy. On the other hand it may be fairly questioned whether Australia, without the weight of British influence and the strength of British ironclads behind her, would have escaped serious consequences through her impulsive action in denying international rights to Chinamen. But leaving aside this question, it is still clear that so long as China is a naval power of considerable strength in seas frequented by Australian commerce, so long Australia cannot forget her existence and neighbourhood. An independent Australia would be compelled at once to develop a navy equal at least to that which she meets in those seas, otherwise she would have no means of {203} checking or chastising the insolence of the meanest Chinese junk which interfered with Australian trade or attacked an Australian ship.

It is manifest, then, that Australia's position is far from being one of isolation. Conditions more different from those under which the United States started upon their career of independence it is difficult to imagine. Almost the last act of Britain before the Revolution was to crush the only other European power which had a footing in America, and might prove a menace to the colonies. Wolfe won at Quebec in 1759--and Independence was declared in 1776. From 1789 till 1815 the whole of Europe was plunged, in strife so desperate that the United States were left free to work out their own development as no nation had ever been left to do so before. Nevertheless the short war of 1812 ruined American commerce, paralyzed industry, and closed by far the larger number of American business houses. It showed that isolation and an ability to ward off actual invasion did not give immunity from the calamities of war.

It seems to me that two inferences, most misleading when applied to the present condition of the British world, are constantly drawn from the results of the American Revolution, and the growth of the United States.

In the first place, because Britain's power in the world was not seriously affected by the loss of the American colonies, it is supposed that she would suffer as little from the loss of those which she now {204} possesses. No inference could be more mistaken. When the American colonies were gone, there still remained space in which a new colonial empire could be founded; there was still room to find bases of maritime power and commercial influence on all the great oceans, and in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. England at once found it necessary to avail herself of this opportunity. There is no chance left now to found a third colonial empire. The other nations of Europe, finding out too late for themselves the advantage which England had gained, have appropriated what small portions were open for their occupation.

Again, the fact that the United States have in the course of a century grown into a world-power of the first magnitude tends to mislead the imagination in forecasting the future of the colonies. Let Canada and Australia, it is thought, make themselves independent, and the history of the United States will be repeated; their greatness equalled in each case. Many circumstances unite to make such a result impossible.

First, the physical conditions of the countries themselves. A Canadian who has made some study of Australia may perhaps be allowed to express frankly his conviction that neither country can possibly look forward to anything that will for a moment compare with the extraordinary increment of population in the United States. He may add that to him this is a subject for congratulation, rather than regret.

{205}

Delightful as are Canadian homes, and all the surroundings of Canadian life to those who understand and have been brought up among them, or to those who come from a similar climate, there is no doubt that the long winter, the short summer, and the necessity which both impose for strenuous exertion, render the country unattractive to vast masses of those emigrants of less stamina who pass so freely into parts of the United States. We may fairly hope that in the long run the race advantage of the slower growth will be great, and an abundant recompense for the less rapid increase of population.

Climate is, in fact, the controlling element in a persistent process of natural selection. It excludes the negro from being any considerable factor in the population. The Italian organ-grinder and all his kind flee southward at the approach of winter. Only on the Pacific coast does the Chinaman find a congenial home. Cities like New York, St. Louis, Cincinnati, or New Orleans attract even the vagrant population of Italy and other countries of Southern Europe: Canada, to her own ultimate advantage, repels it. Canada will belong to the sturdy races of the North-Saxon and Celt, Scandinavian, Dane and Northern German, fighting their way under conditions sometimes rather more severe than those to which they have been accustomed in their old homes. Selection implies less rapid increment; quality is balanced against quantity.

The obstacles to rapid growth which Canada finds {206} in northern cold Australia meets with in southern heat, in a continental configuration which deprives the country of an adequate river system, and in isolation from European centres of emigration.

The geography of the continent presents features which must be considered in forecasting the future of the country. We often see elaborate calculations, based upon the rate of increase during the last fifty years, which are intended to prove that a rapid increment of population, parallel to that which has taken place in the United States, may be anticipated. I found that more prudent thinkers in Australia reject such estimates as utterly fallacious on merely physical grounds, and facts support this different view. With a circumference of about 8000, and a diameter of more than 2000 miles, it is very doubtful if Australia can ever have a great city more than two or three hundred miles from the sea-shore. If Broken Hill be quoted as an exception, it would seem to confirm rather than weaken this view. A large output of silver, amounting already to many tons per week, has attracted to the spot and supports a population of twenty-five or thirty thousand people. But even the presence of so large a population has not led to the cultivation of the soil, and almost every article of food is brought from a distance, while a supply of water itself is only obtained with difficulty. During a recent period of drought, water was carried to Broken Hill by rail.

In America, as soon as the Alleghanies were {207} passed, the flood of immigration poured out upon the great river valleys of the Ohio, Mississippi, and Missouri, and the prairies of the far West, capable of at once absorbing millions of people. Nothing of this kind is possible for Australia. There the want of water in the interior, the partly desert and partly pastoral character of the country, are limiting dense population to the rim of the continent. Even there it is curiously concentrated in the cities. Irrigation, with the intense culture which it makes possible, may cause a considerable change over limited areas, and artesian wells will do much to give steadiness to the pastoral industry, but after all such allowances have been made it seems perfectly clear that the centre of Australia will be conquered but slowly, and will never be densely inhabited. It is hoped that by a united effort among the colonies a railway may be thrown across the continent from North to South; one from East to West would apparently be impracticable, and the connection between the opposite coasts will be chiefly maintained by Sea. Over vast areas from five to ten acres of land must be allowed for each sheep pastured, and it is doubtful if the capacity of much of this land to carry stock can be sensibly increased. The care of sheep and cattle can be carried on with great profit and on an immense scale by an exceedingly limited population, and a large part of Australia must always be chiefly pastoral. I suspect that in the mining industry also the proportion of workers to the volume of production {208} is comparatively small. Three hundred millions of gold taken from the soil since the first discovery of the precious metal less than fifty years ago, and vast public and private borrowings in addition of outside capital have given a great impulse to settlement in the past. But the conditions of the last half century have clearly been abnormal, and can scarcely be taken as an index of the future.

There are, however, other aspects of Australian life which mark this contrast with America even more decisively than do the prevailing industries and physical conditions to which I have referred. The coloured element, which in the United States now numbers about 8,000,000, and forms so large a fraction of the whole population, Australia rejects entirely. Neither Chinaman, Hindoo coolie, nor Kanaka will ever be permitted to become to Australia what the negro is to the United States, a considerable and permanent addition to dense population. Scarcely less strong is the objection to the indiscriminate immigration of cheap competitive labour such as that which has filled up America. The arrival at Melbourne, Sydney or Brisbane of half a dozen steamships with a living freight such as has been discharged at New York from the steerage of Trans-atlantic liners almost every day for the last quarter of a century would today bring New South Wales, Victoria, or Queensland to the edge of revolution. Assisted emigration has come to an end, save in the two younger colonies. For years {209} the great trans-continental Railway companies and Trans-atlantic steamship companies of the United States have acted as the most energetic emigration agencies in every country of Europe, with the one object of pouring a flood of population, without the slightest reference to its quality, over the lands lying along the newly built Railway lines. An Australian Government which tried in this manner to make its State-built Railways productive, would soon find its occupation of governing gone.

That 'pulling in of the latch string' and closing the door which the United States have decided upon reluctantly and late, Australia has begun almost at the commencement of her career. She has determined that her population shall be select. This policy exposes the working man of Australia to the sarcasm that he is quite prepared to repeat in his vast continent that selfishness in respect of land which he is rather fond of denouncing in the landlord of the old world. On the other hand, the United Kingdom has, early and late, sent too many social failures to Australia to justify either surprise or indignation at Australia's aversion to unacceptable immigration. We need not quarrel with Australia's decision in this matter, for it is one which a country has a right to make. It secures more perfect social and political assimilation of new material and avoids the great dangers which flow from placing large political powers in hands unfitted to use them. But if select, then not vast in numbers. Judging from present indications and {210} tendencies Australia is likely to have settled along its seaboard a slowly increasing but singularly wealthy population, whose prosperity will be ministered to by the highly remunerative mining and pastoral industries of the thinly settled interior.

This sea-board of the continent, the rim of which alone is or is likely to be thickly settled is 8000 miles long. A country so situated and populated is manifestly exposed, in an unusual degree, to naval attack. It is this sense of exposure which has in large measure promoted the idea of Federation among the colonies themselves. It has stimulated the work of harbour defence, important for the whole Empire as for Australia itself. It has led to the joint arrangement between the mother-land and the various colonies for an addition to the Australian Squadron. The terms of this arrangement are worthy of note. The various colonies jointly agree to contribute the sum of £126,000 per annum, partly as interest on the capital employed in construction, partly towards the maintenance of a certain number of armed ships to be reserved exclusively for service in Australian waters. To carry out this arrangement the amount invested by the mother-country in the ships, seven in number, already constructed and in active service, has been close upon a million sterling. The skilled officers and trained seamen are also supplied from the Royal Navy. It is specially agreed that any expense incurred beyond £126,000 shall be borne by the Imperial Treasury, that the ordinary strength {211} of the Australian Squadron shall not be reduced on account of this local addition to naval defence, and that during the ten years over which the arrangement extends the seven ships cannot be withdrawn from Australian waters. Surely no young country with an increasing necessity for coast defence due to enlarged wealth and commerce ever secured it on terms to compare with these. No better illustration could be given of the advantage which the colonies may derive from joint action with the mother-land.

The Australasian colonies aspire, and reasonably aspire, to dominance in the Pacific. That manifestly depends on having at command the naval power which can be best secured by co-operation with the Empire. The creation of substantial interests in the heart of the Pacific, such as would be involved in the construction of cable, postal and commercial routes, linking Australia and New Zealand with Canada in one direction, with the West Indies and Great Britain in another (when the Panama route is open), interests which the whole Empire would be concerned in securing, would do more than anything else to give effect to Australian aspirations.

However threatening or annoying the presence of Germany and France in the Southern Seas might be to an independent Australia before she had arisen to a position of great naval strength, I cannot but think that every German and French station in the Pacific, so long as the Empire remains one, is a guarantee of peace. So overwhelming would be the advantage {212} in naval and coaling bases, and in reserves of fighting force, enjoyed by a united British people in those seas, that any European nation could not but expect that a declaration of war against the British Empire would be followed by an immediate attempt on our part to sweep the enemy from the few ports which he might hold in the Pacific; and it cannot be doubted that such an attempt would be made with every probability of success.

There are those who think that Australian Federation will not make for British unity, but will instead prove the prelude to Australian Independence. I believe that this is an entirely mistaken view. But were it true; did the choice for Australians lie between Federation with the Empire and Federation among the colonies themselves, I unhesitatingly say that the true course would be to accept the latter. Until Australia can act and speak as a unit, she is incapable of deciding wisely and conclusively upon her own destiny; she is not in a position to take her right place and exert her due influence in a federation of nations. A number of colonies grouped as are those of Australia, which failed to see the advantage of a common political life, or were unwilling to make the sacrifices necessary to secure it, would remain in a state of political unrest and incomplete development which would render them a weakness rather than a strength in a great national combination. Much as I believe in the advantages which would come to Australia, to the other colonies, to Great Britain and {213} to the world at large from British unity, I yet am convinced that it would be better that Australia should be isolated from the Empire than that she should be divided within her own boundaries. This opinion is entertained, I feel sure, by ninety-nine out of every hundred advocates of a United Empire.

In Canada, however, confederation has not had the effect of weakening attachment to the Empire. By giving the people a larger political judgment it has made them weigh more seriously the responsibilities of national existence and made them value more highly connection with a powerful state.

Meanwhile the contest going on in Australia is the best of all preparations for the acceptance of the wider idea of national unity, since it leads to the accurate definition of principles, and a careful balancing of the gain and loss involved in large organization.

Canadian experience leads us to think that Australian Federation would lend itself to national union in another way. In Canada before 1867, the date of Confederation, the Colonial Office was continually appearing as a factor in provincial politics. Whatever trouble arose, Downing Street was to blame, and party passion vented all its bitterness upon this official representative of England's policy. It is safe to say that Confederation eliminated the Colonial Office as an active, or at any rate, an irritating factor from Canadian party politics. It was found that by far the larger number of those questions which gave rise {214} to friction with the Colonial Office were transferred to the domain of the Dominion government; that the difficulties were such as were necessarily incident to the management of a large state; that Canadians had to fight out among themselves disputes once fought out with an English minister. It is a striking fact that since Canada attained to a united voice on public questions, since confederation imposed upon her the necessity of dealing with internal difficulties and forming a large judgment on common affairs, not only has no serious difficulty arisen with the Colonial Office, but the deliberately expressed opinion of the Canadian Government has, as a rule, given a general direction to British policy in dealing with external matters which concerned Canada.

In one or two of the Australian colonies the Colonial Office is still heard of occasionally as it was in Canada thirty or forty years ago; the Colonial Secretary of the day is a frequent subject of political lampoon; denunciation of his policy is a part of the stock-in-trade of the party politician. To say that this denunciation is affected rather than real is not enough; it is at times a very real irritant between English and Australian feeling. The federation of Australia will, in my opinion, remove this irritant as federation did in Canada, and by eliminating petty differences enable people to take larger views and have fewer suspicions in national affairs. If the Federal Government of Australia reserve the right, as Canada has done, to appoint the governors of provinces, there will {215} be no opportunity for disputes such as that which arose with Queensland a few years ago. If the right be not reserved, a colony will have little room to complain about the manner of its exercise by the Colonial office.

I have pointed out the interest which it seems to me the Australian colonies have in all matters which affect the rule of the Empire in the East, and especially in the question whether Britain or Russia is in India. Military authorities, on the other hand, are agreed, and the fact is, indeed, manifest to any observer, that in the event of a great struggle for the possession of India, the advantage for the Empire as a whole would be immeasurable in having behind India the colonies of Australia and New Zealand, as a base of supply and support, even if they did not send a man into the field. The suggested creation of a great national arsenal in one of the southern colonies as a safe source of rapid supply of war material in case of any temporary break in the connection of India and the colonies with the United Kingdom is a proposal which recommends itself to the common sense of British people, who will have more at stake in the next great war than any nation ever risked before. In the single matter of equipping cavalry the colonies might well turn the scale in an Eastern war. Already both New Zealand and Australia export horses in considerable numbers to India, and indeed already furnish the bulk of the remounts for our Indian cavalry. The surplus stock {216} to be drawn upon is becoming great enough to stand almost any drain, and with the attention now given in the colonies to horse breeding quality is constantly improving. The command of men which the nation has in India, and of horses in Australia, would counterbalance anything that Russia can draw from the steppes of Tartary.

In the matter of food supplies, too, the colonies might play an important part. Army contracts for tinned meats are now filled by the great meat preserving factories, and the capacity of the vast pastures of Queensland and the farms of New Zealand to furnish food of this kind is practically unlimited. There remains to be noticed one all-important fact. The original acquisition of India, as the highest authorities now admit, depended upon Britain's easy access to its coasts by sea. With the Australian colonies and South Africa under the national flag that access could be easily maintained in the face of all comers. The permanence of the British position in India may be considered as resting very largely on this issue.

Whether in a critical contest for the possession of India Australia would contribute men, as well as supplies, may be left to conjecture. But looking at all that would be at stake for the colonies of the South, the failure to respond to a real call of need against Russia would indicate some falling off in that 'saving common sense' which has hitherto inclined British people to challenge enemies on the furthest {217} frontier rather than await them at their own doors. An Australian opinion has already been given upon this subject. A contingent of Australian troops sent to the Soudan may be put to the credit of impulsive national enthusiasm; a contingent one day on the frontier of Afghanistan might well be the outcome of deliberate and far-sighted Australian policy.

I attach very little importance to the opinion, sometimes expressed, that in view of the rapid increase of a native-born population in Australia, any measures looking towards national unity should be hurried forward before the generation born in the United Kingdom had passed away or lost its controlling influence. Other reasons there are for early movement, but not this one. The idea of national unity must win on its own merits. The growth of a native-born population may or may not make for consolidation, but it is on the judgment and sentiment of such a population that the strength of any union must ultimately depend. Meanwhile we may remember that four-fifths of the population of Canada is native-born; the fact has not weakened in the slightest degree the closeness of sympathy with Great Britain and the Empire.

Of the many ardent advocates of national unity, everywhere scattered throughout the Dominion, by far the larger proportion consists of native Canadians. So I believe it will ultimately be in Australia. The longer history of Canada, the more severe conditions of that history, seem to me to have given a greater {218} maturity and definiteness of political thought in Canada than in Australia.

It was often pointed out to me in Australia, by the older inhabitants, and particularly the older politicians, that among the un-travelled younger people of the colonies there was at present an extraordinarily exaggerated opinion of the absolute and relative importance of Australia in the world. A stranger naturally hesitates to generalize on the truth of such a criticism, though marking individual illustrations. I had the privilege of addressing a gathering of young men of the Sydney University. In a debate which followed one of the students asked: 'What single thing have people in England better than we Australians have here?' The manifest sincerity with which the question was asked made the remark deeply interesting--almost touching. The attitude of mind is accounted for by the lack of some standard of comparison close at hand. England has measured her strength with too many rivals to overrate her place in the world. Canada has had a great neighbour to force upon her a sense of proportion. The United States themselves emerged from the great war of Secession with a temper curiously modest and moderate as compared with the spread-eagleism which prevailed in the years when the country had known little but continuous prosperity, when its strength had not been tested by trial, and when a republican form of government was supposed to be a guarantee against all the ills from which monarchies were wont to suffer. {219} The remarkable conditions under which Australia has been developed, with no strong native races against which to struggle--with external enemies kept at a distance by British ironclads, or by fear of the British name, and with suddenly gained wealth almost without precedent in history--sufficiently account for any over-confident attitude on the part of very young Australians. This, time is sure to rectify. Political experience gives political perspective. Out-side of this it would be difficult to discover anything in the mass of Australians to indicate that they were likely to be different from Englishmen or Canadians in loyalty to a large nationality. I say the mass of Australians, for it would be idle to ignore the fact that another current of thought exists.

In two of the Australian colonies, New South Wales and Queensland, some journals are found which make it their business to cultivate an anti-British and separatist feeling, and it must be admitted that they give themselves to their task with great and unflagging energy. It is very difficult to estimate accurately the range of their influence. I found the most divergent opinions held upon the point by well-informed Australians themselves, some looking upon them, and the idea which they represented, as forces that would have to be reckoned with in the future: others regarding them as unworthy of notice, and without any permanent influence. Certainly in strength of language they have no parallel in any other part of the British world, or in the United States. British people {220} outside of Australia may be interested in knowing something of their tone and aim. I select a comparatively moderate passage. 'What does it [British Federation] offer us in exchange for our ideals and our aspirations, and our sympathies and our interests? ... It offers us only an unwieldy Empire, crusted over with fungi, rotting with inequalities, governed by a class which is blown out with Privilege and Pride, that ignores the Spirit of the Age and clings to the brutal Past. In this Empire our Australia will be swamped, under it she would be buried; in it our inspiration to lift again the torch of Liberty would be smothered and drowned. We do not want it and we will not have it. Our Australia shall be as free from foreign control as is the sunshine that the Australian loves; as is the billowing sea that surges eternally around her shores. She shall in herself be complete, in sympathy with all, in dependence upon none. ... We have no interest in British Trade and still less in the maintenance of the Empire. We do not care who owns India; we hope that if any more opium wars come about the white ensign will be blown out of Chinese waters; nothing would please us better than to hear that the Spaniards had retaken Gibraltar and the Germans Heligoland and that the huge facade of commercial aggression and oligarchic robbery had come down with a crash.'

This passage fairly represents a kind of political pabulum which is dealt out very freely and finds an audience in Sydney and Brisbane. For the most {221} part it is furnished, not by native Australians, but by imported talent. In Sydney a higher grade of newspaper freely discusses the question of separation from the Empire, with a distinct inclination towards independence as the true Australian ideal.

At a public meeting which I addressed in Sydney the statement of the arguments for British unity met with what seemed to me a distinctly unfriendly reception. The case stands quite alone in my experience of the British world. I was, however, to my surprise assured by leading men who were present that the hearing given me was, for Sydney, a very good one. If so, the lot of a public man in New South Wales is not an enviable one.

At this meeting Mr. Buchanan of the Legislative Council moved, and Mr. Traill of the Legislative Assembly seconded, a resolution, affirming that 'the natural and inevitable tendency of the Australian colonies is to unite and form among themselves one free and independent nation.' I give the names of the mover and seconder that the weight or weakness of their support of such a resolution may be justly estimated by those competent to judge. In comment upon the occurrence the leading Sydney journal, while repudiating any sympathy with the display of Separatist feeling, said, 'the fact is patent that within the last few years the opponents of closer union, even the advocates of separation, have gathered courage, spoken more boldly, and taken an aggressive attitude.' Australians therefore know what they have to deal {222} with. Mr. Dibbs, the present premier of New South Wales, has used expressions that indicate a wish for or an expectation of Australian independence. On the other hand, among the great majority of leading men in the colony, including native Australians of prominence and conspicuous ability, such as Mr. Barton and Mr. Reid, the opinion appeared general that separation from the Empire would mean for Australia 'all loss and no gain.' At the Sydney conference of 1891 the voice of Sir Henry Parkes was as decisive for permanent unity with the Empire as was that of Sir John Macdonald at Quebec in 1864.

Making all allowance, however, for division of opinion in Sydney, it must be remembered that New South Wales by no means represents all Australia.

If large and enthusiastic meetings, the hearty support of an influential and exceptionally able press, and the cordial approval of the clearest thinkers form a sufficient index to popular opinion, then one is justified in saying that the idea of national unity appeals strongly to the sentiment and to the reasoned conviction of the people of the next great colony, Victoria. The dominating energy of Victoria has extended its interests to every corner of the Australian continent. Its business connection with the mother-land is more important and intimate than that of any other colony. Hence the outlook on national questions is wide, and Victoria would steadily resist any tendency to separation from the Empire. The same may be said, I think, of South Australia, where the press is conspicuous {223} for its able and temperate discussion of national questions and where the prominent leaders of opinion are sincere believers in the permanent unity of the Empire.

In Queensland, as is well known, there has been in past years much talk of separation, chiefly arising from friction with the Colonial office being made a factor in local party conflicts. For some time Queensland refused to share in the expense for naval defence undertaken by the other colonies, the contribution for that purpose being denounced as 'tribute.' Later and wiser thought has reversed this decision. From its long coast-line and the immediate proximity of settlements formed by other nations, Queensland has more interest than any other colony in naval defence.

The consciousness of exposure to attack prompted the attempted annexation of the whole of New Guinea, and explains the intense annoyance felt in Queensland at the refusal of the Colonial office to sanction that annexation. The necessity for naval protection is a permanent condition, and will probably dominate the political thought of Queensland even more than of the rest of Australia. In Rockhampton I had the opportunity of discussing, the question with a large and sympathetic audience, and in other parts of Queensland as well as there with leading politicians and journalists. Despite the superficial talk about separation, I doubt if in any colony of the Empire is the value of a great national connection more thoroughly understood by those who really dominate the policy of the colony.

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Taking the Australian continent as a whole I think it is a fair estimate to say that in every one of the colonies there is an overwhelming majority who would favour permanent connection with the Empire. On the other hand it is quite certain that in some of the colonies there is an active and aggressive minority energetically working for ultimate separation. It is for Australians and Australians alone to decide between these conflicting ideas.

TASMANIA.

The colony of Tasmania is comparatively small, but its insular position makes it one of the critical points in Australian defence. Up to the present time owing to the small population and revenue, its principal harbours have been less strongly fortified than those of Australia, and military authorities have constantly urged greater attention to its defences upon the ground that by seizing positions here an enemy might find means of coal supply and a base from which to attack Australia. Upon this point the report of General Edwards was most emphatic. The island is within three days' steaming distance from Adelaide, one from Melbourne, two and a half from Sydney and four from New Zealand. With several fine harbours, a soil and climate equal to any in the world, a considerable coal supply, and as yet only a limited population to resist attack, Tasmania {225} would present to any hostile power not merely an opportunity but almost a temptation to establish a Gibraltar in the Southern seas. Tasmania has strong commercial reasons for wishing to federate with Australia. On the other hand in an Australian federation she would have the strongest reasons for opposing separation from the mother-country. Like New Zealand, she depends for safety upon naval defence, a defence she could not receive from the colonies of the continent.

So far as it is possible to judge from external indications the opinion of this small but strategically most important colony is almost entirely in favour of close and permanent connection with the Empire. During discussion on the subject carried on in the principal centres of population, and extending over some weeks, I found that the idea of British unity was heartily supported by everyone of the leading newspapers, and by most of the principal public men, including the leaders of the Government and Opposition. Opposing ideas have their representatives in a small group of sincere republicans, headed by the present Attorney-General, the Hon. A. Inglis Clark. The republicanism of this small party was the more interesting, as it seemed to me quite unconnected with and superior to the irrational and bitter anti-British feeling which occasionally finds expression in one or two of the Australian colonies.

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NEW ZEALAND

In New Zealand I found among politicians, journalists, and the public generally, a remarkable consensus of opinion that the circumstances of that colony would always compel it to regard questions of national defence and consolidation from its own point of view, and in a large measure independently of Australia. Facts justify this attitude. New Zealand is 1000 miles long and nowhere more than 150 broad. Cut in two by a broad strait and penetrated by numerous bays and inlets, it has 3000 miles of coast line, and is therefore more exposed from a naval point of view than any other equally fertile, wealthy, and thinly settled country in the world. That it is an outlying part of Australia is an illusion left on many minds from a casual glance at small maps of the Southern Hemisphere, but the illusion vanishes the moment we visit the country or consider the facts. Twelve hundred miles of open sea separate it from Australia. The trade between the two is growing, but it is insignificant compared with the flood of commerce which pours from each towards Britain. The similarity of production will probably make this a permanent condition, save when drought compels Australia to look to New Zealand for food supplies. Britain is New Zealand's one great market, and it has become a more steady and reliable market from the means which have been devised to transfer the perishable produce of New Zealand farms to the {227} British consumer. Meanwhile, in her isolated position only naval power can give the colony adequate defence. The states of Australia can give effective support to each other--they cannot give it to New Zealand until they possess a fleet sufficient to command the Southern seas, and such a fleet they will not possess at any time within the range of present political calculation. Among reflective men in New Zealand one finds no readiness to believe that geographical isolation could be relied upon for giving military security, an idea which has considerable vogue in parts of Australia. 'I see that the tendency of enterprize and science is every year more to annihilate space, and space will be annihilated for purposes of war as well as peace, and the distance of the colonies from those who may attack them every year becomes less and less of a protection to them.' These words of Lord Salisbury express not inaccurately, I think, the prevailing thought of all serious politicans in New Zealand in regard to their country. The feeling is strengthened by a further consideration. New Zealand has already a good deal of trade with the scattered islands of the Pacific. This trade is likely to have a large development as time goes on. At any rate New Zealanders have formed a very definite ambition to acquire a large commercial connection and powerful influence in the Pacific, an ambition which can scarcely be realized unless its commercial interests have adequate naval support.

Considerations of the kind I have mentioned explain {228} the comparative indifference of the colony to Australian federation, which would never satisfy her necessities except as subsidiary to the larger national union. They explain the fairly unanimous support which her ablest public men have given to the general principle of national Federation. Mr. Ballance, the Liberal Premier of New Zealand, said in the House of Representatives, in a discussion which took place prior to the Australasian Federal Convention at Sydney, that 'Imperial Federation, with a free management of its own affairs as at present, was the only future he would look to for the colony.' Equally strong expressions could be gathered from the speeches or writings of most of the leading men of New Zealand. The fear lest Australian Federation might ultimately lead to separation from the Empire was publicly and expressly assigned as a reason why New Zealand should not be a part of the Australian commonwealth. Inside an Australasian Federation New Zealand's influence would be steadily thrown in favour of British national unity. On the other hand, should Australia ever move towards separation--an improbable contingency, but one often suggested by a few of her journalists and public men--the advantage in prestige and more practical ways which New Zealand would derive from retaining the wide national connection, and becoming the centre of the Empire's naval strength in the Southern seas, would infinitely outweigh anything Australia could possibly offer, and would decide the course to which {229} self-interest even now points. The individual interest which New Zealand thus holds towards the question is very significant, and worthy of careful attention. Placed in the centre of the water hemisphere of the globe this 'Britain of the South' seems the precise complement of the mother-country at the centre of the land hemisphere, while a conjunction of circumstances,--the possession of excellent harbours, already very fairly defended, and easily made impregnable, a plentiful supply of coal, timber, and metals, a climate which never fails to favour abundant crops, and nourishes a sturdy race,--fits the country to be the opposite pole of the Oceanic Empire which Britain has created. Distance might be supposed to have lessened commercial intercourse with the mother-land; as a matter of fact it is greater in proportion to wealth and population than that of any other country. Roughly putting the exports of New Zealand at £10,000,000 per annum, £7,000,000 go to Great Britain, £2,250,000 to other parts of the Empire, and only the small remaining balance to other countries. The proportion of imports is not widely different. Community of interest could scarcely be greater than this. The safety of this trade, too, is of the very essence of the prosperity, one might almost say of the commercial life of the country. Its stoppage would mean financial and industrial paralysis. We have therefore some measure of what the security guaranteed by the greatest naval power in the world means to New Zealand.

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On the other hand, it would be difficult to exaggerate the advantage which such a power would derive in war from the exclusive use of this halfway place in the voyage around the world. Auckland, Lyttleton, Wellington and Dunedin all have excellent harbours. The fortifications which protect them, constructed and equipped at the expense of the colony itself, are, says General Edwards in his report 'well planned, and the armaments are sufficient to repel the attack of several cruisers, provided the defence is properly organized and competent officers appointed to command.' Thus they furnish a comparatively secure retreat for ships of commerce or of war. Auckland and Lyttleton have docks, that at Auckland being capacious enough to receive for repair the largest ship of war afloat. Even now the vessels of France, Germany and other nations call here to coal, victual, or repair, finding such stations as Samoa or Noumea but poor bases from which to operate. The advantage to a nation holding these ports in time of war would be overwhelming. It would scarcely be diminished even if Australia should become independent. Other powers, if they respected Australia's independence, could not use her ports as a base of attack, and at the utmost could only demand the rights of neutrals which would be of little use in a serious conflict with Britain while retaining the exclusive possession of New Zealand. The defection of one or two of the Australian colonies, or even of the whole continent, would weaken {231} the chain of the Empire's maritime position, but would not create in it a fatal flaw, so long as New Zealand remains faithful to the national allegiance. The practically undivided sentiment of her people and her own supreme interests alike incline her in this direction.

[1] _Address before Royal Colonial Institute_--_March_, 1891.

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