THE EDINBURGH REVIEW ON FEDERATION. T HE current number of the
Edinburgh _Review contains an article on "Colonial Independence" worthy in every way of the best traditions of the senior quarterly. The editor has had the courage to publish a paper which speaks out on the question of Imperial Federation, and makes a firm stand against the vague and delusive aspira- tions which pass current under that phrase. At the present moment, washy sentiment about "binding closer the links of brotherhood," and wild talk of war-leagues and customs- leagues, have become so popular that the majority of intelli- gent people, in spite of inner misgivings, pretend to favour Imperial Federation. They are afraid that if they do not, they will be looked on as unenlightened, parochial, and unpatriotic,—in a word, as unable to rise to a true under- standing of the destinies of the English race. Hence, those who are proud of and believe in the English kin, and who desire its prosperity and essential unity, are often shamed into expressing a general adhesion in regard to the aims of the Imperial Federationists. Fortunately, the Edinburgh is not afraid of being branded as unpatriotic and un- English, and meets the question openly and. frankly. Many opponents of the Federation delusion are content to fight the question on matters of practical detail. They express a vague and nominal acquiescence, while believing that the whole scheme is chimerical. The writer in the Edinburgh has the courage and good faith not merely to attack Imperial Federation on points of detail, but to declare that as an ideal it is mischievous and absurd. That this is the truth, we have ourselves never doubted for a moment, and we have repeatedly urged arguments similar to those set forth in the July Edinburgh. We are not content with saying that Imperial Federation is im- possible. We believe that, even if it could be carried out, it would prove injurious rather than beneficial to the best interests of the English race.
The writer in the Edinburgh argues out the impossibility of Imperial Federation with conspicuous ability. To begin with, he points out that Federation must mean that the Federal authority, not the Parliament of the United King- dom, shall become the final arbiter on questions of peace and war. Conceivably, however, this difficulty might be got over, and England might be content to place her foreign policy in the hands of the directors of the Kriegsverein. But Federation means more than placing foreign affairs in the hands of a new Imperial authority. It must mean also the introduction of a Federal element into the civil admini- stration of all the component parts of the Federation. This may be denied, but the example of the United States and Switzerland proves the fact beyond all doubt. The Supreme Court of the United States, with its network of local Federal Courts, was the natural outcome of a Federal Constitution. -Unless a system of Federal judicial administration had been devised, there would have been no means of settling points of disputed jurisdic- tion, or of harmonising confficting authorities. Were we to form a Federal Constitution to-morrow, the same necessity would arise. But, as the Edinburgh writer very pertinently asks, "are we prepared to establish Federal Courts of Law, with Federal Judges, to interpret the rights of the Federal States, to maintain the authority of the Act of Federation, and to enforce the execution of the Federal will ?—Courts which will restrain the action of the Supreme Court of Judicature at Westminster, of the Court of Session in Edinburgh, nay, even of the House of Lords, and which will have power to set aside the will of King, Lords, and Commons as being contrary to the Constitu- tion." You cannot, he goes on, federate the Empire without having a written Constitution, which written Constitu- tion, again, it must necessarily be outside the authority of a local Parliament to modify. "it is not only in cases of great and exceptional importance that the intervention of Federal authority will take place. Throughout the whole of the -United States spreads a network of Federal Courts, an army of Federal tax-gatherers, entirely independent of State authority. Will Australia, will Canada, submit to such a system? Will the United Kingdom ? " Here is a question to which the Imperial Federation League will do well to attempt an answer. Another excellent point made by the writer in the Edinburgh is drawn from the fact that if we federate, we must make the Federal authority really supreme, and give it power to lead and rule the Empire. But "where are our materials for the construction of a Supreme Government which would speak with equal authority for the wide regions comprised in the Dominion of Canada, the Australasian Colonies, and the United Kingdom ?" "Control of the Empire as a whole from a single centre," he continues, "and as a single nation amongst the nations of the earth,' we believe to be im- possible. It can only prevail at the cost of local inde7,. pendence. To attempt to centralise Imperial authority will be to endanger, not to strengthen, the mutual friendly . sentiments now existing between the Mother-country and the Colonies. Let us by all means endeavour to work together in friendship towards common ends ; and in order to do so let us recognise facts, and let us found our co-operation frankly on alliance between virtually independent States— not on the fiction of a common subordination to supreme control" The alternative to Imperial Federation thus suggested is more fully worked out in another passage in the article where "friendly alliance between Great Britain and those great English communities beyond seas now called De- pendencies, but soon to be independent States," is set forth as the writer's ideal. He believes that "as time goes on, facts will prove too strong for sentiment, and that, without any great wrench to our Constitution, due recognition will ultimately be given to existing conditions —that virtual independence will have to be recognised as such, and that the relations between Great Britain and Australia and Canada will be determined by contract or treaty freely entered into between them, just as now are the relations between Great Britain and foreign nations." In a great measure, we agree with the writer in his descrip- tion of the future of the Empire. We think, however, that he errs in insisting that the relation which we should desire to see, or, at any rate, which is destined to be estab- lished between the various parts of the Empire and the Mother-country, is that of one foreign nation to another. We see no reason why the Colonies should not become entirely independent and autonomous, and yet occupy, as regards each other and the United Kingdom, a far closer relationship. Why should not community of citizenship be recognised throughout the English-speaking communi- ties which now form the Empire ? That is, why should not it be agreed that no Englishman, Canadian, Australian, or South African should be regarded as an alien in any English-speaking community ? Surely this is a bond of unity well worth having, and yet one which brings no difficulties. Again, the component parts of the present Empire, and, if possible, the United States, should be bound to each other by perpetual treaties of offensive and defensive alliance, and by agreements to submit all in- testine quarrels to arbitration. For Canada, Australia, and South Africa to stand to each other and to the United Kingdom in the relationship we have sketched, would on every ground be better than for them to stand in that which obtains between, say, Holland and England. The notion of maintaining community of citizenship among that portion of the English race which at present possesses community of citizenship, and, if possible, of re-establishing it with that larger portion with which at present we have no community of citizenship, the United States, may sound at first as not worth troubling ourselves about. A little reflection, however, will, we believe, bring another con- clusion, and in the end, the ideal which we have pro- claimed will be recognised as one well worth striving for. If carried out, it would in fifty years' time mean half the civilised world lapped in the security of a mighty Pax Anglicans.
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