THE STATESMEN OF THE EMPIRE.
WE are all proud of the Empire, and unless we are greatly mistaken the thing that we ought to be proudest of in the Empire is the statesmanship and high political wisdom shown by the Colonial Premiers.—We realise that the word " Colonial " is not greatly liked by our oversea fellow-citizens, and we have ourselves no love for its Roman and un-English origin; but there is really no other word which will do the work, and so the best thing is to make it fit the facts and be a word of pride and dignity.— Several of the Colonial Premiers happened to be speaking in London on Tuesday at different public functions, and in their speeches they showed a grasp of Imperial problems and an understanding of the essential ties that bind the Colonies to the Mother-country and to each other that were quite admirable. We select as typical the speeches of the two men who preside over the destinies of the two greatest of the free nations of the Empire,—the Premier of the Dominion of Canada and the Premier of the Common- wealth of Australia. Other Colonial Premiers have shown no less statesmanship, but both these statesmen spoke on Tuesday, and together they speak for nearly ten millions of English-speaking men. What was specially noticeable in their words was the evident desire to give an assurance to the Mother-country that there is no need to hurry matters in the Empire, or to press unduly for the tightening of the bonds that unite us. We are ourselves as strong and as convinced Imperialists as any in the land, but we have always held that as the Empire had its origin in freedom and the free play of political forces, so it must be maintained by and through freedom. We must develop on the old lines, and not on new lines. If the old system and the old principles had not produced results so satisfactory, from the point of view of material progress no less than of sentiment, it migh's be necessary to consider new methods for consolidating the Empire. But the history of the last three years has shown us that there is no such need. The Empire's foundations are firm, and they allow plenty of scope for growth and development. They will support any strain that can be imposed on them. We do not say that Sir Wilfrid Laurier and Sir Edmund Barton said all this in so many words, but unless we have entirely misread their speeches, the attitude which the Spectator has adopted in regard to the constitution of the Empire differs very little from their own.
Sir Wilfrid Laurier dwelt upon the magnificence of the spectacle represented by the freedom of the Empire, and by the gathering of the statesmen of the Empire to testify to and attest the unity of the British Empire. We agree; and we hold that such Conferences on common concerns can do nothing but good. That such Conferences exercise no executive power and come to few definite and authoritative decisions matters little. The meetings and the interchange of views that take place are themselves events of capital importance. But the essential point is the perfect freedom of those Conferences. As Sir Wilfrid Laurier said so eloquently, "the Empire of Rome was composed of slave States ; the British Empire is a galaxy of free nations." The Greeks, though sea-divided, assembled, no doubt, in friendly meetings, but there the object was testhetic and not political. The object was sports, arts, and letters. "But in the British Empire, whose characteristic is strong common-sense, the first object is to assert the authority of all, to provide that there shall be no revolution in the British Empire. The first thought is for loyalty. The second is gravely to sit clown and discuss and debate the problems which affect us all." Sir Wilfrid Laurier went on to ask what was to be done. "Shall the British Empire be maintained on the lines on which it was created, or shall new departures be taken P " Sir Wilfrid Laurier answered his question by declaring that the Empire must be maintained by the arts of peace and by avoiding the curse of militarism. "I am a believer," he declared, 'gin those old doctrines that have made England great, and it is a firm conviction of my heart that if persisted in they will make her still greater." Needless to say, Sir Wilfrid Laurier does not. mean by_ this that the -Empire and its component parts are to neglect the duty of self-defence and of protecting their rights and interests. He merely, we take it, desires to protest, and with all the emphasis at his command, against the notion that the Empire cannot continue unless it is closely and rigidly organised, and with a highly centralised military system.
Equally emphatic as to the unwisdom of rushing into any hard-and-fast Imperial military system was the speech of Sir Edmund Barton at the meeting of the British Empire League on Tuesday. The Duke of Devonshire in his speech insisted, as we think too strongly, on the need for taking large measures in regard to a common and organised system of Imperial defence. As we 'understand him, at any rate, he desires to see a system at ones estab- hshed 'under which each Colony is to have its share of military duty and military burden apportioned to it. If that is so; then we must express our disagreement, and our belief that Sir Edmund Barton entertains a far truer view of the situation. "He had heard it argued," he said, " that they should try and make some common system of defence between the United Kingdom and the various Colonies. He could wish that that were possible so far as the ultimate security of the Empire was concerned ; but the first consideration of the Empire was its internal cohesion ; and this would be best promoted, he thought. for some time to come by relying on spontaneous assistance being given by the Colonies to the Empire at any time when its integrity was threatened,—a point which had been seen in operation within the last few months." With these wise words we absolutely and entirely agree. Internal cohesion at present is the essential need, and nothing must be done to put it in jeopardy. But it would be placed in jeopardy if at this moment we were to attempt to get the Colonies to bind themselves to adopt a rigid system of Imperial defence with the accompanying burdens.
• All that it is necessary to do just now is to leave the 461onies to organise their own admirable military material it. their own way. We desire, of course, that such organisa- tion should be sound and thorough for two reasons. In the first place, it is essential to the manliness and moral status of the young nations of the Empire that they should be trained for their own defence, and should be able to let the world in general know that even if they stood alone and were not part of a powerful Empire, they would be dangerous people to meddle with. Next, we desire that they should be trained to war in order that they should be able to lend aid to the Mother-country when she is fighting the common battles of the race. But these objects will, we hold, be far better attained if the Dominion, the Commonwealth, New Zealand, and the other Colonies develop their own forces on their own lines and are not pledged to any bard-and-fast system. Once they were so pledged we believe that the people of the Colonies would begin to find the preparations a burden, to allege and resent the interference of the Home Govern- ment, and generally to show dissatisfaction of a kind which would make a homogeneous niilitary scheme, though much better on paper, much less satisfac- tory in practice. We want the Colonies to feel their own responsibilities directly and to deal with them directly, and not to be dry-nursed in military matters by the Mother-country. Of course the Colonial statesmen, being sensible men, will in certain particulars insist on homogeneity of organisation. For example, they will adopt the same or a similar rifle and the same cartridge. They will also see that their artillery conforms as far as possible to the Imperial standard. Again, they will employ the services of British Imperial officers in the work of inspec- tion, so as to maintain in years of peace the full efficiency of their forces. The essential thing, however, is that the forces shall in all matters be under the entire management and control of the Colonies, that if they are offered for war service they shall be 'offered freely, that there shall be the maximum of elasticity and of consideration of local circum- stances in the organisation, and that the financial burden shall not be too heavy.
We shall no doubt be told two things in condemnation of our view as to the problem of Imperial defence. In the first place, it will be said that we shall not get a force of any fighting value. The answer is,—" Look at the Colonial contingents sent to South Africa." Are we sure that if those bodies had been organised and controlled and looked after by the military authorities at home they would have been as efficient as they were P Next, it will be said that our proposal is not fair to the Mother-country, and that the Colonies ought to do a great deal more financially for the common interests than they do under the present system. We shall be asked, in other words, whether we• "really propose that the Mother-country shall continue to bear practically the whole burden of Imperial defence." Our answer is "Yes." We hold that the Mother-country can and ought to bear the main burden for the present. While she calls the tune and regulates the foreign policy of the Empire, it is only fair that she should pay. But it is essential that she should so continue for the present to regulate our foreign policy alone, for the Colonies are not yet prepared, nor are we prepared, to create a representative Federation. Next, we do not consider that the Colonies are rich enough as yet to bear the burden of Empire. Young communities look much richer than they are. In reality, they are necessarily poor, or rather, heavily burdened. They have got all their houses to build, their roads to make, and their railways to lay down, with the result that they have very little to spend on other things. All their energies go in "settling in," and, unless at a great emergency, they cannot be, and ought not to be, diverted from their pioneer work. Quite apart from size, the Mother-country can far better stand the strain of providing for the defence of the Empire than can the Colonies. In our view, it is an entire mis- take to try to shift any part of the burden of Empire on to the shoulders of the Colonies. In time, and when they have become settled countries, they will share our liabilities.
Now the less we work those promising two-year-olds the better. What we want, and what will pay us, is to promote the general prosperity of the Empire, and this we shall not do by burdening the young and growing nations. It is far better to let them alone, and, as Bacon advised, com- paring colonies to plantations of trees, look not for immediate but distant results. The Colonial Premiers no doubt see these things clearly enough, but naturally they do not quite like to set them forth lest they should seem selfish and grasping. It will, all the more, be the path of. wisdom for our statesmen to note the fact, and not place the Colonial Premiers in a position of difficulty by trying to get them to assent to accepting burdens which are, in truth, too great for their communities to bear.
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