THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE AND MR. LAURIER ON COLONIAL GROWTH.
THE meeting of the Colonial Premiers in Liverpool last Saturday was one of the great sign-posts in the Colonial policy not only of England but of the world. The Duke of Devonshire presided, and read an address which was one of singular weight, and in the evening meeting the Prime Minister of the Canadian Dominion spoke in a sense that will anticipate some of the greatest difficulties in the Colonial history not only of this but of many other countries, though England being the mother of the most powerful and numerous Colonies in existence, the history of English Colonies will naturally contain, at least for a century or two, the most important features of the Colonial questions likely to arise between the Mother-countries and the Colonial offspring of every prolific nation. The Duke of Devonshire touched upon one very critical point in our Colonial history when he remarked that but a generation ago he had been a member of a Committee to consider the true policy of this country towards our settlements in West Africa, and that he had been much surprised to find that he himself really was a member of that Committee, which he had not very frequently attended and had wholly forgotten. This was remarkable as show- ing that the early traces of great movements in the history of nations are often very faintly marked, and very slightly impressed even on the minds of considerable statesmen who were personally connected with them, though they resulted in great consequences. And the report of that Committee was curiously significant because it took a view of the Colonial policy of this country which, whether it was wise or foolish, was at least entirely at variance with that which has been forced upon us by subsequent events, since it declared that we ought to interfere as little as possible in the government of the barbarous African tribes, and only help them so far as we can to govern themselves, with the intention of ultimately withdrawing from exerting any territorial influence over them altogether. The Duke now regards that policy as quite mistaken, and thinks that for the last twenty-five years the dealings of this country with the West African tribes have been wrong and wasteful of our influence. In Canada, where there was much more plausibility in pursuing such a policy as this, we took a different line, and that different line has resulted in the greatest success of our Colonial policy all over the world. Of course there was a much better field in Canada for the extension of our government without anything like such absolute dictation as we should have been obliged to pursue among mere barbarians, for in Canada we had not only held our own, but had eventually been able to grant real self-govern- ment and to encourage effectual federation among closely connected States. This the Duke of Devonshire holds as the true policy, so long as it proceeds in the most carefully tentative way, and does not attempt to impose a cut-and-dried system without slowly feeling our way. Now in Canada we had neither trusted to Free-trade as a perfect clue to bring us to our true relation with the States with which we had to co-operate, nor have we recently attempted to govern them with the strong hand since we learned that they were sufficiently politically developed to know much better what they wanted for themselves, than we could discover it for them.
Mr. Laurier, in his evening speech, took the same ground. England had discovered, he said, for the first time that a. Colony could be also a nation, and that it is possible to maintain a real authority over such a nation even though allowed, up to a certain point, to govern itself. The British people, said Mr. Laurier very truly, has no genius for constitution writing. It has no gift for leaping to great constitutional conclusions. All that it has a real genius for, is groping its way slowly to the best possible arrangement between one people and another ; for giving way here where giving way is best, and insisting there where insisting is best ; and so feeling its way to what enables both peoples to work together. That is what the British race can do. It can learn from experience. It can profit by its own blunders. And it is by recognising its own blunders, and correcting them, that it has learned to govern Canada well, not only though it had lost, but because it had lost, the States of North America by its obstinacy. Lord Durham and Lord Elgin had saved Canada for England through the frank recognition of the blunders of our former policy in North America, and of the tendency of our statesmen to repeat them in Canada.
In one respect the Duke of Devonshire and Mr. Laurier took somewhat different lines, and lines which more or less supplemented each other. The Duke of Devonshire was careful to insist that we had in former times dwelt too much on the magic of Free-trade. He thought Cobden and Bright had been mistaken in preaching that the free interchange between the different nations of the earth of their various products, would turn the world into a commercial paradise. Not only was that a mistake, but even a very close protective system did not prevent a great deal of prosperous commerce. Both Germany and France had a considerable volume of trade with foreign Colonies in spite of a tariff which was anything but encouraging to commerce. The Duke himself is a hearty Free-trader, and thinks that for England Free-trade has been, and is, a great blessing. Still, in his view, our recent history has shown that trade can prosper in spite of hostile tariffs, and that the most intimate commercial intercourse will not necessarily bring nations into cordial relations. We do not say that Mr. Laurier denies this in the abstract, but his speech certainly implies that unless there is very great friend- liness in commerce, there is not likely to be very great friendliness in other national relations. To our mind there was a little too much of commercial warning,—we will not say commercial menace, for we are sure that no menace was intended, —but too much of that kind of warn- ing that suggests unquestionable danger if the counsel of the adviser is not attended to, in Mr. Laurier's speech. He dwelt almost solely on the prospect of more extended commercial relations between England and. her Colonies as the kind of closer union for which the colonists yearn. He referred with great pride and emphasis to the reduction which Canada had promised to make on the imports from Great Britain, a reduction of l2t• per cent., and next year of 5 per cent. This he evidently thought generous. And then he reminded his audience that it was affirmed that this policy could nut be continued because Canada is not willing to grant these reductions to those other countries to which they would be entitled if Great Britain had conceded to them what is called the "most favoured nation clause." This clause might entitle many other countries to claim the right to send their goods to Canada at the same reduced duty at which Great Britain is to be permitted to send them. And he went on to maintain that we ought not to allow our Imperial engagements to stand in the way of our special dealings with one of our own Colonies, and to declare that if this engagement with other countries did stand in the way of such a special arrangement with one of our own Colonies, the whole question of Canada's relation to Great Britain would have "to be reconsidered in tote." And so far as we see, Mr. Laurier's only conception of drawing closer our relations with the Canadian Dominion is limited absolutely to our com- mercial relations, at least for the present ; which is not, we think, a very high ideal of the closer union which so many of our Colonies seem to desire with the Mother. country. Thus while the Duke of Devonshire, notwith- standing his strong belief in Free-trade as the true policy for this country, did his best to point out that Free-trade is no security for even a " commercial paradise," Mr. Laurier leaves on us the impression that the tie between the Mother-country and her Colonies is so essentially a com- mercial tie that if we desire to draw it closer we must at least begin by finding new commercial knots for binding the Mother-country and them more closely together. Now for our own part we believe that while it is of the greatest moment that no artificial obstruction, like the policy of Protection, should be interposed between the different nations of the earth, we do not believe either that Free- trade is an adequate security for union, since some of the most serious wars in the world have been wars between nations not divided by any financial fends, or that financial quarrels are the most serious of all the causes of disunion. We shall not be drawn closer to our Colonies unless we find ourselves coming into warmer moral sympathy with them, whether our commercial ties are stronger or otherwise. And indeed in the present case the increasing warmth of the relations between. England and her Colonies is due to the growing depth and cordiality of the social and political feelings which unite them to us, which, as the Duke of Devonshire truly said, increase without any visible reason, almost like "some- thing in the air," something that shows itself to us as a "great and irresistible force," "speaking to the minds, and more than to the minds, to the hearts, of the people."
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