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.
{224}
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.
{226}
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.
{230}
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.
{232}