CHAPTER XI.

AN AMERICAN VIEW.

FOR the sake of studying the various angles from which the idea of federating the Empire is criticized it seems worth while to refer briefly to some of the views expressed in a paper, lately contributed to a leading magazine[1], on the subject, by Mr. Andrew Carnegie, under the title of 'An American View' of Imperial Federation. Among thinking native Americans I have found, as a rule, a genuine sympathy with the advocates of unity for British people, a sympathy perfectly natural in a nation which has suffered and sacrificed so much as the people of the United States have for a similar object. Besides, their familiarity not only with the idea of large political organization, but with its actual working out has taken away from them that fear of its difficulties which seems to haunt many weak-kneed Englishmen who conceive that human political capacity had achieved its utmost when it evolved the existing Imperial system. One of the distinguished thinkers of the United States, after a tour made around the world a few years ago, expressed {254} to me, with characteristic American energy and emphasis, the opinion he brought home with him upon the subject of British consolidation. 'The citizen of the British Empire,' said he, 'who is not an enthusiast on the question of Imperial Federation, is a Philistine of the very first magnitude.'

Working out on separate and yet parallel lines the great problems of liberty and of civil and religious progress, the United States and the British Empire have the strongest reasons for sympathizing with each other's efforts to consolidate and perfect the national machinery by which their aims are to be accomplished. English people now understand and respect the motives which actuated the resolute and successful struggle of the people of the United States against disruption. That Americans should understand the necessity which exists for maintaining the integrity of the Empire and the principles on which it is sought to maintain it, is most desirable. They are not likely to learn them from Mr. Carnegie.

Curiously enough, he begins his argument by forgetting that there is a British Empire. As I have pointed out elsewhere (though without regarding the views as essential to Federation), there are those who consider that national consolidation would be hastened on through an endeavour by tariff agencies to make the Empire self-sufficing in the matter of food, just as the United States by the McKinley tariff, are endeavouring to make themselves self-sufficing in the matter of manufactures.

{255}

Mr. Carnegie justifies protection in the United States because it ultimately cheapens production, and then says: 'Now because Britain has not the requisite territory to increase greatly her food supply, any tax imposed upon food could not be temporary but must be permanent. The doctrine of Mill does not therefore apply, for protection, to be wise, must always be in the nature of only a temporary shielding of new plants until they take root. It will surprise many if Britain ever imposes a permanent tax upon the food of her 38,000,000 of people, with no possible hope of ever increasing the supply, and thereby reducing the cost, and thus ultimately rendering the tax unnecessary. A tax for a short period, that fosters and increases production, and a tax for all time which cannot increase production, are different things.'

Mr. Carnegie evidently forgets that the Empire covers one fifth of the world, that it produces every article of food and raw material of manufacture, that under the compulsion of any great national necessity it could in five years make itself independent of outside supplies, with the possible exception of raw cotton, and that by the natural processes of growth and change, without any protection, it is likely in the near future, partly on account of the inability of the United States to furnish what they have hitherto furnished, to be drawing its supplies of food chiefly from its own territories. It is not my business to suggest, much less argue for a system of protection {256} for the Empire, but if it is to be discussed, let us at least take into account the elementary facts which Mr. Carnegie omits. The climax of absurdity seems well-nigh reached when Mr. Carnegie, fresh from the full operation of the McKinley Tariff and its justification, roundly accuses the Empire Trade League of making 'efforts to array one part of the race against the other part' because it has suggested a very slight differential tariff within the Empire. Life in America is not generally supposed to destroy a sense of the ridiculous.

Mr. Carnegie's criticism of another class of Federationists is that they have 'no business' in their programme, 'no considerations of trade,' that 'sentiment reigns supreme.' It is evident that he has not a primary conception of the main drift of federation policy. He is like many of his fellow-citizens in America, out of whom life on a broad continent appears to have driven the maritime instinct. Because external commerce or the carrying trade means little to the United States, or because his own country is so remarkably self-contained, he has no standard by which to measure the profound and practical significance which maritime position has for countries like Great Britain or Australia. In 1890 of the 3389 vessels which passed through the Suez Canal 2522 were British and three American. In the same year, out of the whole volume of American external trade itself, only 12.29 per cent., or about one-eighth was carried in American bottoms, of the remaining seven-eighths by far the larger part crossed the seas under the {257} British flag. Again, in 1890 the shipping cleared in England amounted in all to 3,316,442 tons, but of this only 38,192 tons were under the United States flag, although the trade between the two countries is one of vast proportions. These figures will serve to illustrate how difficult it must be for anyone looking at our national questions from an American point of view to understand the fundamental interests of British people, and perhaps explain the airy cheerfulness with which Mr. Carnegie suggests various processes of political evolution which involve the disintegration of the Empire. But Mr. Carnegie has other difficulties than those which arise from studying a question from an unfavourable angle. The intense occupations of business in America may well be his excuse for not keeping in touch with the movement of British politics; they can scarcely excuse him for discussing English affairs as if he were in a position to understand them. 'Britain,' he says, 'can choose whether Australia, Canada, and her other colonies, as they grow to maturity, can set up for themselves, with every feeling of filial devotion towards her, or whether every child born in these lands is to be born to regard Britain as the cruel oppressor of his country. There is no other alternative, and I beseech our friends of the Imperial Federation (League) to pause ere they involve their country and her children in the disappointment and humiliation which must come, if a serious effort is made to check the development and independent existence of the colonies, for independence {258} they must and will seek, and obtain, even by force, if necessary.' One hesitates whether to lay stress upon the ignorance or the folly of sentences like these. I use the words advisedly. Ignorance, because apparently Mr. Carnegie does not know that almost every responsible British statesman of the past half century and of the present day, when dealing with this question, has said that when the great colonies wish to go Great Britain will raise no objection; that this view has been re-echoed unanimously by the press and by public opinion; and that no advocate of Imperial Federation, national unity, or whatever other name we apply to British consolidation, has ever hinted at the union of the self-governing portions of the Empire as anything else than a pact entered into voluntarily by communities free to choose or refuse as they please, as free as were the States of the American Union or the provinces of the Dominion to adopt their present system. Britain has not waited, and Imperial Federationists have not waited, for Mr. Carnegie's supplications to decide this great and fundamental issue of national policy. The advocates of national unity are the foremost to proclaim it. Folly, for it is folly when Mr. Carnegie, in the face of facts like these, which nobody can question, rounds his periods with hints at cruel oppression, on the one side, and independence won by force, on the other, when discussing the relations of England and her colonies. It is on his own continent that he finds the example of states kept within a national union by force.

{259}

If Mr. Carnegie understands little about Britain's relation to her colonies and to the world, he understands much less about the opinions of colonists. None the less he speaks of them with the most complete assurance of knowledge. A single illustration will give the measure of his ignorance. Quoting certain views in opposition to British connection expressed by Mr. Mercier, the late leader of the extreme national party in the French province of Quebec, he gravely assures his readers that Mr. Mercier reflects the sentiments of ninety-nine out of every hundred native-born Canadians and Australians. Absurdity could scarcely go further.

Mr. Carnegie poses as a political philosopher and gives English statesmen the advantage of his sage advice on national questions. We look for the grounds of this superior wisdom and we read as follows: 'What lesson has the past to teach us upon this point? Spain had great colonies upon the American continent: where are these now? Seventeen republics occupy Central and South America. Five of these have prepared plans for federating. Portugal had a magnificent empire, which is now with the Brazilian Republic. Britain had a colony. It has passed from its mother's apron-strings and set up for itself, and now the majority of all our race are gathered under its Republican flag[2]. What is there in the position of {260} Britain's relations to Australia and Canada that justifies the belief that any different result is possible with them? I know of none.' And knowing none, Mr. Carnegie, by his own confession, writes in utter ignorance of the main facts of the question which he discusses. Spain and Portugal governed their colonies from the home centre, and as tributaries. Britain allows her colonies to govern themselves, and to dispose of their own money as they please; Spain and Portugal (and England in 1776) wished to retain their colonies against their will; Britain now leaves the question of continued connection a matter which colonists are to decide for themselves.

Very interesting indeed is Mr. Carnegie's sudden change of front when he comes to look at federation as making for the aggrandisement or the good of {261} the United States rather than of the British Empire. He has just been proving the absurdity, the impossibility, nay, the criminality, of trying to knit together in some sufficient federal union the mother-land and her great colonies. He proves to his own satisfaction that the colonies never will be and never ought to be satisfied with the position they will have in such a union. Separate governments and separate governments alone will satisfy their yearnings for complete independence.

He passes by without note the idea which inspires the Federationist, who believes that such a union will make enormously for the world's peace, not only by preventing the formation of many distinct and possibly hostile states, but also by enabling British people to give security to industry over an area of the world greater than was ever before under a single flag--at least three times as great as that of the United States, to say nothing of the vast extent of ocean which the Empire can control.

With his ignoring of this leading idea of those who wish for British unity, and his ridicule of federation for the Empire, a feature of the alternative which he proposes is in odd contrast. He suggests that Canada should be encouraged by England not merely to give up her present allegiance, but to join the United States, and this is the argument with which he supports his suggestion: 'With the appalling condition of Europe before us, it would be criminal for a few millions of people to create a separate government {262} and not to become part of a great mass of their own race which joins them, especially since the federal system gives each part the control of all its internal affairs, and has proved that the freest government of the parts produces the strongest government of the whole.' Why not, one asks, for the British people as well as for those of the United States? Why may not full control of internal affairs and the freest government of the various parts of the British Empire go hand in hand with a strong government for the whole? Why may we not consider the united and sympathetic effort of the different divisions of the Empire to so consolidate their strength as to maintain peace over one fifth of the world directly--indirectly over a still greater proportion--a nobler ideal than that for which Mr. Carnegie thinks the Empire should give up Canada--i.e. the peace of America? Nor need the larger interfere with the smaller aspiration. Incidentally Mr. Carnegie himself fully admits this. After having used the possibility of conflict between Great Britain and the United States as his chief or only argument for the transfer of Canada's nationality, he goes on to say: 'Even today every Federationist has the satisfaction of knowing that the idea of war between the two great branches is scouted on both sides of the Atlantic. Henceforth, war between members of our race may be said to be already banished, for English-speaking men will never again be called upon to destroy each other. During the recent difference ... not a whisper was heard on either {263} side of any possible appeal to force as a mode of settlement. Both parties in America and each successive government are pledged to offer peaceful arbitration for the adjustment of all international difficulties--a position which it is to be hoped will soon be reached by Britain, at least in regard to all differences with members of the same race.'

The Geneva arbitration, the Halifax arbitration, the San Juan Settlement, the offer of arbitration in the Behring Sea affairs, so long urged upon Mr. Blaine by Lord Salisbury before it was accepted, the arbitration arranged with France in the affairs of Newfoundland, all seem to indicate that Britain is quite as advanced as the United States in these views of peaceful settlement. With this qualification of his way of stating the case we may accept Mr. Carnegie's hopeful outlook, which takes away all the point of his previous contention. There is, however, a point worthy of his and our consideration.

I once heard Lord Rosebery express the opinion that equality of power was one of the chief guarantees of peace between great states. It adds the very powerful motive of self-interest to those other influences which incline a nation to arbitration or other fair and reasonable methods of settling international difficulties. 'If,' said he, 'it should ever happen that England became towards the United States like the old grandmother in the corner, her teeth dropping out one by one, as her colonies leave her, and she {264} were patronised or despised by her grown up offspring, this relation would not be one tending to promote friendly feeling. Far better for mutual respect, consideration, and closer friendship that each should follow out its own development on its own broad lines.' Whether a British Empire going through a process of disintegration, or one steadily consolidating its strength would be more likely to obtain equity and fair play from American politicians (who must so often be distinguished from the American people) I may safely leave even Mr. Carnegie, who knows them, to decide.

Nor is there anything in the position of the United States on the continent which would justify Americans in demanding from the Empire the sacrifice of her maritime position implied in the transfer of Canada to a new nationality. Ports on the Atlantic and Pacific as many as they need the United States already have. Trade in Canadian products they can obtain on terms as fair as they will themselves agree to. A less aggressive neighbour they could scarcely expect to have. Two countries on the same continent working out parallel political problems by different agencies may be mutually helpful with varying experiment and example. Contrast and mutual reaction stimulate progress for more than vast monotony of system.

Mr. Carnegie endorses Mr. Goldwin Smith's opinion that Britain's 'position upon the American continent is the barrier to sympathetic union with her great {265} child, the Republic.' As an American he should be ashamed to admit the accuracy of such an opinion. Britain's right to her place on the American continent is as much above question as is that of the United States. The man or people to whom a neighbour's enjoyment of an admitted right causes irritation, has lost the finer sense of morality. The nation which yielded an undoubted right under the pressure of such a base irritation would do a harm to international morals. British Federationists have more faith in the nobler qualities of the American people than has Mr. Carnegie. They earnestly hope for a union of effort in behalf of the higher interests of humanity between the great Republic and the Empire from which she sprang, but they know that that union can only come from mutual respect for each other's rights, and can never be brought about if the aggrandisement of the one must be purchased by the disintegration of the other.

One more passage must be quoted to illustrate the range of Mr. Carnegie's vision when he leaves the domain of American politics to discuss the affairs of Great Britain. He says: 'Her (Britain's) colonies weaken her powers in war and confer no advantage upon her in peace.'

I must let another American, whose mind has not been too much influenced by devotion to trade on a highly protected continent, a man who has had occasion to study seriously the larger problems of national life, make answer.

{266}

'England,' says Lieutenant Mahan[3], 'by her immense colonial Empire has sacrificed much of this advantage of concentration of force around her own shores; but the sacrifice was wisely made, for the gain was greater than the loss, as the event proved. With the growth of her colonial system her war fleets also grew, but her merchant shipping and wealth grew yet faster.'

And again;--

'Undoubtedly under this second head of warlike preparation must come the maintenance of suitable naval stations, in those distant parts of the world to which the armed shipping must follow the peaceful vessels of commerce. The protection of such stations must depend either upon direct military force, as do Gibraltar and Malta, or upon a surrounding friendly population, such as the American colonists once were to England, and, it may be presumed the Australian colonists now are. Such friendly surroundings and backing, joined to a reasonable military provision, are the best of defences, and when combined with decided preponderance at sea, make a scattered and extensive empire like that of England, secure; for while it is true that an unexpected attack may cause disaster in some one quarter, the actual superiority of naval power prevents such disaster from being general or irremediable. History has sufficiently proved this. England's naval bases have been in all parts of the world, and her fleets have at once protected them, {267} kept open the communications between them, and relied upon them for shelter.

'Colonies attached to the mother-country afford, therefore, the surest means of supporting abroad the sea power of a country. In peace, the influence of the government should be felt in promoting by all means a warmth of attachment and a unity of interest which will make the welfare of one the welfare of all, and the quarrel of one the quarrel of all; and in war, or rather for war, by inducing such measures of organization and defence as shall be felt by all to be a fair distribution of a burden of which each reaps the benefit.'

After such a statement of the bases on which sea power rests it is with natural regret that Lieutenant Mahan adds: 'Such colonies the United States has not and is not likely to have. ... Having therefore no foreign establishments, either colonial or military, the ships of war of the United States, in war, will be like land birds, unable to fly far from their own shores. To provide resting-places for them, where they can coal and repair, would be one of the first duties of a government proposing to itself the development of the power of the nation at sea.'

British people, either at home or in the colonies, may safely be left to decide whether they can afford that their ships should be in war like land birds, unable to fly far from their own shores.'

It must not, however, be supposed that Mr. Carnegie really represents the views of the better minds of his {268} own country on the question of British Unity. In an article contributed to a leading American Magazine three years ago I had occasion to outline for American readers the chief features of the Federation problem. The editorial comment upon this paper seems worthy of reproduction as an expression of genuine American opinion on the subject, and may be commended to Mr. Carnegie's consideration. The writer says: 'What could be more natural than the "Federation" scheme for British reconstruction, which has been before the British public for years, and is now renewed in the article just mentioned? It offers to Great Britain the maintenance of every interest, legal, economic, political and moral, which has grown up in the past, and has shown itself worthy of conservation. It maintains all the ties which have held the different parts of the Empire together. It even strengthens them prodigiously by transforming the weak ties of colonialism into a true national life: so that the foreigner shall look upon Canada or Jamaica, not as temporary hangers-on of a distant island, but as component and fully recognized members of a magnificent ocean empire. It distributes the burden of imperial taxation over the whole empire, so that the Australian may look upon the Imperial iron-clad which comes into his harbour as possibly the product of his own state's taxation, while Canadian regiments shall take their tour of duty in English or Irish cities, or at the Cape. It lessens the dangers of a new break-up of the Empire through Colonial discontent: {269} the Canada or New South Wales of the "federation" could submit without a second thought to the abandonment of claims "by its own government," while there is now always something of a sting in such an abandonment by a home government on whose decision the colony has exercised no direct influence. It leaves to every square foot of the Empire that alternative of self-government in the present, or of the hope of self-government in the future which is afforded by our State and Territorial systems. Canada would be at once one of the self-governing States of the Empire: but the territories of India would have under the Federation such prospects of complete state-hood, when they should deserve it, as they could never have under a Russian Dominion or protectorate. ...

'The question now is whether the inevitable development of English democracy in new directions, more particularly in that of a federated empire, shall happily anticipate any conjunction of circumstances which might otherwise force a second break-up of the Empire. It is really, then, a race against time by the English democracy.'

The closing reference to Canada may be commended to the consideration of Mr. Goldwin Smith, as well as Mr. Carnegie, since it reflects a spirit worthy of a great people.

'If, as one result, our neighbours to the north of us should become an integral part of a real empire, such a natural and simple solution will find no congratulations {270} more prompt and cordial than those of the American people, even though they are not based on any of those selfish advantages which annexation professes to offer to the United States[4].'

[1] _Nineteenth Century_, _Sept._ 1891.

[2] This statement is a characteristic instance of Mr. Carnegie's inaccuracy. Let him subtract from the whole population of the United States the seven or eight millions of negroes in the Southern States, the six or seven millions of Italians, Spaniards, Poles, Hungarians, Austrians, Russians, Germans and Scandinavians, who entered the country between 1847 and the present time, the people who with their descendants threaten, according to American writers, to overwhelm the native element of the population; let him place beside these figures the further facts stated on American authority that the emigration from Great Britain to the United States has been in the same period only about 1,500,000, and from Ireland 2,500,000; and he may find reason to acknowledge that the mass of 'our race' is still in the British Islands and in the great colonies which yet retain their distinctive Anglo-Saxon character. Mr. Carnegie makes the triumphant calculation that the child is born who will see more than 400,000,000 people under the sway of the United States. He adds the odd comment: 'No possible increase of the race can be looked for in all the world comparable to this.' So far from such a growth indicating the increase of our race, it could only mean its practical obliteration in the great Republic. The increase of the native American population is notoriously very slow--only a largely increased influx of alien races could make Mr. Carnegie's calculations a reality.

[3] _Influence of Sea Power_, p. 29.

[4] _Century Magazine_, Jan. 1889.

{271}