TOPICS OF THE DAY.
WE confess to feeling not a little- anxiety at the tone and temper of the debate in regard to the loan of thirty millions which the Government insist that we shall some day obtain from the Transvaal. The Government speakers seemed to have entirely lost touch with the essential principles on which the Empire is founded, and to be dominated by the pernicious notion that the Empire ought to be, and can be, made to contribute directly to the expenses incurred by the Mother-country in its foundation and development. The notion which those who agree with the Government view hold appears to be that a ledger account should be opened with a new Colony, and that the Mother- country should from time to time look up the entries and point out that the Colony is so much in her debt, and that a settlement would be welcome. The Central Govern- ment is, of course, to be very moderate in its demands, and not to press for payment at inconvenient times. Still, the transaction is to be a business one, and ultimately the money is to be collected in full. Now we venture to say that the Empire was not built up, and could never have been built up, on any such principles as these, and that if an attempt is made to alter our system, and to substitute tributary ties for the old free connection, the Empire will not last another generation. It cost us many millions to secure British North America, but we wisely entered into no debtor and credit account with the Dominion when that great and free nation was established within the Empire. The same thing can be said of Australia and New Zealand. The Cape affords a still more striking example, for we paid down a definite sum of many millions to the Dutch in consideration of the cession of the Cape at the close of the Napoleonic War. Accord- ing to the new system, this ought to have been charged to Cape Colony, and she should be paying us at this moment an annual tribute of some quarter of a million to provide interest on " money expended."
Happily, these commercial ways for evading the burden of Empire were unknown to the statesmen of the past, and they preferred to look rather to an indirect than to a direct benefit from our Colonies ovorsea. Consciously or unconsciously (and in matters of Empire the unconscious obedience to an instinct or a principle is often the safest guide), they realised that what was best for the Mother-country, and so for the Empire as a, whole, was that Britain should be surrounded by a circle of free self-governing communities, and not by tributary Colonies,—by States which, though they owed their existence to the mother-State, could never feel that she had called them into existence to exploit their resources or to strengthen herself at their expense. The result has been that the daughter-States feel for her as the child feels for its parent. What parent, when a child comes of age and sets up in business for himself, calls the child aside, shows him in a ledger how much he has cost to bring up and to educate, and remarks that he expects the son, " when quite convenient," to repay expenditure which he must recognise was by way of loan, and has, therefore, become an obligation of honour ? No self-respecting father speaks in such terms to his son, and hitherto we have never spoken in such terms to a Colony. It would seem, however, that under the system inaugurated by Mr. Chamberlain during his visit to South Africa, we are to change all this. The old Imperialism taught us to look only for indirect benefits and voluntary help from the Colonies. Under the new Imperialism we are to substitute the nexus of the moneylender and the banker for that of the father, and even when we are showing pride and pleasure at the development of our children we are to remind them in terms of pounds, shillings, and pence what they cost us. We may say " Advance, South Africa!" but we are to add : " I am sorry to trouble you at such a moment, but there is still a little account outstanding."
Is it possible that any sound argument can be brought to show that the Transvaal is an exception, and that we may create in her a tributary Colony without infringing the principle that the nexus between us and the self- governing portions of the Empire shall always be bonds of blood and sentiment, and not links of usury ? We can find no ground for differentiating the case of South Africa from that of our other white Colonies. The only point of difference is that the Transvaal was a semi-independent State acquired by us after a war. But as Mr. Emmott has pointed out in a most able and statesmanlike letter in Wednesday's Westminster Gazette, this plea of con- quest is in reality an argument against, not for, the thirty million loan. You may, as he says, conquer a. country and then restore its liberty on payment of
an indemnity, but you cannot annex and incorporate it in your Empire and then levy an indemnity to pay part of the cost of the war. What, we may add, should we have thought of Germany if, after the Franco-Prussian War and the inclusion of Alsace-Lorraine in the German Empire, the Germans had worked out the proportion of the war indemnity which would have been paid by Alsace- Lorraine had the provinces remained part of France, and had insisted that the conquered districts should borrow that amount on a special local tax and pay it into the German Treasury ? Yet this is in fact what it is proposed that we should do in the case of the Transvaal. We presume that the answer of the Government, and of those who defend the demand for the thirty million loan, will be that we have never insisted on its payment, and that the Transvaal voluntarily undertook to raise such a sum as their contribution to the war. "They have promised to pay " is an expression constantly to be found in the mouths of Ministers. If that is the argument, all we can say is that it is an extremely bad one. The Transvaal never made any such promise, for the very good and sufficient reason that hitherto there has been no body or institution in the Colony competent to make one. - Lord Milner had no right to commit the Colony, nor had the Government nominated by him. A Representative Assembly could alone give such an undertaking, and no Representative Assembly has been in existence since the war. A Crown Colony Government may tax as it pleases, but it cannot exact promises from the people over whom it rules. It is possible, no doubt, that when a Representa- tive Assembly is created an endorsement of the alleged promise may be obtained from it by representations of which men of English race are specially sensitive, and rightly sensitive,—i.e., by representations that the thirty million loan is a debt of honour. We protest with all our strength against such representations being made. There is no obligation of honour involved, and if it should be pretended that there is, the most disastrous consequences are certain in the end to flow therefrom. Let us assume that the first Representative Assembly can be stung into admitting the responsibility owing to suggestions of dishonour made here. What will happen ? The loan, or a portion of it, may be raised, and the Colony saddled with what is sure to be represented as a tribute to the Mother-country,—a contribution to the Imperial Exchequer such as is borne by no other Colony. This may be paid for a time, but ultimately, and when a large number of newcomers have flocked into the Colony, a movement •for repudiating the tribute is certain to grow up. Men who had no hand in, and knew nothing about, the war will declare that at any rate there is no obligation of honour upon them, and that they see no sense in bearing the burden. In other words, we shall be face to face with an attempt to repudiate the tributary obligation, and out of the controversy that must thereon arise we shall be lucky if we escape with merely the calling of ugly names and disagreeable recriminations.
But may it not be said that at all events the gold industry promised to make the contribution, and that it is quite fair that the burden should fall ou it since it has benefited so greatly by annexation ? Our first answer to this is that, as a. matter of fact, the gold industry, or rather that section of the big capitalists who met Mr. Chamberlain, never promised to bear the burden, but merely to underwrite a loan,—a very different matter. But even if there had been such a promise, it would have been worthless. The gold industry is not a cor- poration, and promises from such indeterminate sources commit no one, not even the individual capitalists who are alleged to have made them. Perhaps it will be said, how- ever, that the Imperial Government ought, before banding over the Colony to its inhabitants, to impose special taxation on the gold industry. To such a course we should strongly object. As our readers know, we are by no means prejudiced in favour of the South African capitalists ; but nevertheless. the mining industry must not be singled out, any more than any other. Colonial industry, for a special Imperial burden. The. Colony will have to depend ler its financial 'strength and security in the future upon the taxation of the. gold mines,and every penny that can be justly and. reasonably levied on . the mines will be yequired, for internal development. Consider for a .moment what the feelings of the Transvaal Colonists would be if, , when they desired to develop their own country by increased taxation of the mines, they were told : " That is a source of wealth which you cannot touch, or only touch very slightly, because it is already earmarked to,pay the interest on the thirty million loan,"—i.e., the tribute due .to Britain. When we give complete self- government to the Transvaal, we must give it with the national assets unencumbered, in order that they may be used to the full. to develop the Colony, and to help on that work of South African unification which must be our next .great step. in Empire-building.
Look at the question as we will, there is only one wise, .prudent, and truly Imperial course open to us, and that is to reject Mr. Chamberlain's dangerous scheme of putting a, portion of the burden of the war upon the Transvaal. -We must pay the thirty millions ourselves, and look, as we have done in the past, to the indirect rather than to the direct benefits of Empire. If, instead, we adopt the new procedure, and treat the. Empire like a financier's business, Ave shall enter upon a path that can only lead to ruin. For ourselves, we feel certain that when the British people understand the true issue they will, with their unfailing instinct for Empire, reject the new Imperialism and hold fast to the old. We are encouraged in this belief by the admirable letter of Mr. Emmott of which we have spoken above. Mr. Emmott, though a ,strong party Liberal as well as a sound Imperialist, boldly tells his countrymen that they must refrain from claiming the thirty millions. We trust most sincerely that his example will be followed by the Liberal party as a whole, and that they will resist the temptation—we admit, no small one_ of saying when they come into office that the bargain was made by their predecessors, who claim to be Imperialists in a special sense, and that it is therefore not for them to undo it. On the contrary, they must show that they are better and sounder Imperialists than Mr. Chamberlain 'and Mr. Balfour, and that, cost what it may, they will maintain the Empire on the old and sound prin- ciples,—chief among which are the principles that no Colony under any excuse shall be exploited for the benefit of the Mother-country, that the bonds between us and the daughter-States shall be bonds of race-feeling and filial loyalty, and that never will we tolerate within the Empire agroup of tributary Colonies.
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